


Flight Recorder From Viking 7

by Royalrastafariannaynays



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Bulges and Nooks, Dirk is a little kid, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Intense, M/M, Nightmares, No Quadrants, POV Dave Strider, Science Fiction, Space Flight, Space Stations, Surreal Dreamscapes, Vivid nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-06 12:41:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8751805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Royalrastafariannaynays/pseuds/Royalrastafariannaynays
Summary: Dave Strider is a way-too-lonely transport pilot assigned to a high-pay low-stakes mission over the Christmas holiday. He's got a blistering hangover, a conscience full of nightmares, and an angry copilot. All he needs now is a nice bout of feeling worthless and-- well would ya look at that, he's got that, too. Time for takeoff, Houston, the water's just fine. Or: In which Dave Strider discovers a modicum of self worth while stuck on a trip through foreign space, with a short, irritable, and annoyingly attractive troll as his only conversational partner for the next two weeks.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _“space is colder_   
>  _than the air in the mountains_   
>  _where i come from_   
>  _than the air in the mountains_   
>  _where i come from”_
> 
>  
> 
> [x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxzN91Z-eQQ)
> 
> Big thanks to dusty for basically beta reading this and watching me write, and aS for reading over this chapter!! Love y'all haha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: this fic contains surrealism and vivid nightmares. These are common dissociation triggers, so mind the tags if you're sensitive!

Gr-r-r-r-rinding. 

 

H-halting. 

 

The low sound of metal rolling against metal.

A lead ball in an iron bowl, being gently moved in a circular fashion by an unseen hand, tilting its world on an axis.

It’s a great, thunderous noise. Deep as an undersea trench. Dark as a locked closet.

They’re gears, if you look too closely.

Grinding, halting.

Not ticking.

But they keep time.

A mechanized voice. Monotone, human, soft. Halting, awkward.

“Today is two. One. Eight. Nine. One. Two. Two. Zero--” 

 

**You’re.**

**Walking.**

**…**

There’s a sidewalk under your feet, boiling hot.

Bushes line the street, bright green and rustling gently in the breeze. It’s odd that there are bushes, and that the sidewalk is… warm. It’s December back on Earth, isn’t it?

The lights lining the houses on the sides make sense, and the inflatable Santa does as well. Everything flickers. It’s most likely just a heatwave. Those happen all the time, even after the re-terraforming of the middle northern hemisphere.

It’s Texas, after all. And Texas never fully recovered from the irresponsible fracking that created a sinkhole big enough to decimate Fort Worth.

Dirk’s tiny three-year-old hands are trying to clutch pieces of chalk, and he’s drawing on Rose’s driveway again. Last time, Rose scolded him for it. Kanaya staved her off, however. She’s all for trying to parent like a human, even if some of her suggestions need curtailing and improvement. One time, she attempted to hang Dirk by his shirt to dry him off after a bath.

Thank God the kid was having fun, or you would have had a field day.

You think she was just being silly.

With the drawing, however, it’s just Kanaya’s latent all-applicable mothering instincts that make her want to desperately foster creativity in anyone and everyone she can.

It’s cute.

You can see why Rose likes her.

Even if she is about seven and a half feet tall.

Their doorways are massive.

**...**

 

A man with feathers covering his torso is walking along a sidewalk. He hops, skips.

Heaves a gasp. His feet seem suspended in time as he falls forward, tripping—

Impact

He crashes into the pavement, fingers hitting first, body shattering into a splash of clear fluid that cascades through the cracks and down into the earth. Finally, he’s returned to her.

And it is.

Earth, you mean.

Why are you on eart--

_Impact_

He crashes into the pavement again, this time eighty-four crashes all at once. The shattering turns into foam and then into solid shards of blistering glass, and then into earth.

And it is.

Earth, you mean.

Why are you—

_**Impact** _

He crashes into the pavement again, nose crushing first, spreading in the air into water. Clear, blessed water. The water lies in a thin layer on top of the cracked concrete. The sky is faded aubergine. A dust storm is coming.

Dirk is kneeling, drawing something in chalk on the pavement. His small three-year-old hands are covered in gray, the front of his pants splashed with pink and red and blue. And a dark green.

The chalk is smearing ugly lines in the unknown felled-feather-man-fluid.

It looks like vomit.

“What’s goin’ on?”

Your words sound drunk on the crystalline air.

Dirk’s voice, when he answers is like the haunting, dragging layering of eighteen voices all speaking at once. Like an audio file gone wrong. Like a slow, fear-tapped escalation into actual speech.

“Nutin’ mu’h, papa,” he says.

 

You sigh.

 

A long, worn argument, like the frequently turned first page of his favorite picture book.

“Lil’ bro, I’m not your dad. How many times do I have to tell you?” Your voice is there, but it’s not.

Dirk looks up at you. His gold eyes are piercing, pure, it’s all you can see. 

 

You drown in them.

You’re scared.

“Mom and Dad got into an accident, remember? I told you. Has czaR’KnetH’l been telling you about their twenty-seven parents, again? I thought they left your online robotics course when they were transferred planets.”

“You tol’ me,” he confirms, still staring.

It’s harder to breathe.

“Then why’d you-“

The colors are so bright.

 

So bright you have to squint, and try to cover your eyes. It hurts. 

“I hate you, Dave.”

It echoes, pooling like acid in your mouth and throat and burning a hole beneath your tongue.

Regret, mortification, regret, sadness, he’ll never love you again.

The eyes, the bright eyes, but they’re not dirk’s eyes, they’re something,

Tick

Tick

Tick

The eyes,

Tick

The bright eyes,

Tick tick

They’re something,

Tick

something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, _something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, **something, something, something, something, something, something, something, something, some--**_

You wake with an electric, squelching lurch that spasms uncontrollably all the way through your body, worse than the jolting shock of an electric fence.

The air in the room is sterile and cold.

You wake up to a tinny, shrill alarm in your tiny one-man bunk with the six-foot-round window.

You wake up right on time for another departure.

“Get up, you lazy sack of what is most likely human waste. Departure is in an hour and I’m having to check over the vessel on my own,” a voice growls into your intercom.

A groan, and you stretch. 

That’s the last time you’re taking your twin’s shitty bet and trying to take a sopor patch ‘just to see what it would do, David. For my new novel.’

David’s not even your full fucking name.

Fuck your employer for giving pilots each other’s contact information and passcodes for shit like this.

_Hnnnnnaaaaaaaaaauuughgghhghghhhhhh._

The new regulator on your neck that you just had implanted yesterday is itchy. They can heal the tiny wound, but they can’t prevent it from itching. For whatever reason.

You resist scratching it.

“Wh’ h’ppen’ to the custummms eng’neer that s’posed t’ do’t,” you manage to slur into your handset. It comes out garbled, and you’re surprised you understood even yourself.

Imagine your even greater surprise when the foreign voice responds.

You’re flabbergasted they even fucking understood you.

“He didn’t show up. Something about food poisoning. Guess who needs to be here in half an hour for us to make our takeoff time because I’m the navigator, not the fucking engineer.”

The voice, as you sit up and get your bearings, is still a growl. It sounds more tired than angry at you. You don’t blame them.

It’s… pitched both up and down. High register, low register, no middle, high and low fuse to make the middle. Echoing clicks, frustration, from an insectoid mouth? Speaks English very obviously without a translator. There’s not the same… kind of weirdly vibrating tenor that a translator makes.

Why English? It’s not translating from any other earth language. After all, non-earthlings tend to speak any given language from Earth, at whatever point they want. There are a fucktonne of Chinese-speaking Graftians. It’s weird.

The owner hisses into the mic.

You think it’s supposed to motivate you to do something.

The mic is cracking oddly, though. Probably mechanical error.

A troll voice.

Trolls.

Whyever the fuck they decided on that moniker for their species. Not just in English, either.

You suppose it’s gentler than it could have been..

“Me. It’s me, innit?” you yawn.

The troll hisses again into the mic, probably cussing you out in Beforan or Alternian or whatever is PC these days, and… there’s the telltale click of them hanging up.

As you stand and stretch some more, you set your appearifier (slang, you really don’t want to think about acronyms and full names this early) to make some coffee. Lots of coffee. With like. Fifty percent sugar and milk.

.....

Time to go to work.

Two weeks on a mission to the Second Ring of Nare-ev 8734, a typical waste transport mission neither of you probably expected to be on. There’s a species out there that has the tech to transfer the waste into useable energy with little to no dangerous output.

And hey. It pays really fucking well. Holiday, long trip, dangerous cargo, fucking sold.

Your head is pounding.

It’s easy work to slide into your suit and boots. The fly suit’s skin-tight, but that’s just regulation, and makes you look like something out of a really old cartoon show from the previous century. Something Japanese, maybe.

Sure, you’re aching a lot. And your head is pounding. And you wince as you slip your lambs-wool-soft-lined jacket over your fingers, because the extra weight of the thing makes your shoulders pull down.

Okay, whatever, it’s not easy work.

Your unknown partner for this mission is probably going to take one look at your beleaguered face and drawn brows and irritation and know. Humans taking sopor as a non-addictive for outer-galaxy funtimes isn’t at all unheard of here.

And…

About the sopor patch.

Yeah, yeah. It’s totally more something John would bet you to do, right?

Searching through your ridiculous mental database for information, you find overwhelming evidence that John was the one to convince you to take the alien substance. Just for funsies.

John had the idea first, actually.

Some stoner troll had handed you a patch on his way out and your way into the commissary. ‘Spreading the love, motherfucker.’

The guy looked familiar. Kind of like the Grand Highblood Incumbent, actually. But that’s none of your business.

Anyway, so Jade egged John’s joke on, pounding their fists and shaking the camera on their ends of the 4-way holo-call last night. Their enthusiasm was contagious.

Rose had sat in thought, fingers a contemplative and damning steeple before her half-pursed mouth.

She had looked at you, and she had been the determining vote.

“Why don’t you take it? Let’s see what it would do, dear brother. After all. It has been approved in adjusted doses for humans. As a sleep aid, of course. What could it possibly do to harm you?”

It’s the tone that made you do it. A little cold, a lot disappointed.

The hungover part of you thinks she was probably just bitter.

Your little brother apparently hasn’t been sleeping.

You probably deserve it.

 

He doesn’t sleep all that well anymore. And he’s been getting more and more agitated, every time you visit for a few days and then leave. It’s all you can afford, to keep him in his fancy schools he needs and pay Rose bills for the kid and so on and so forth. 

But he.. Doesn’t like you, anymore. And then, Rose’s ‘lofty’ opinions of you are probably rubbing off on him. Her shitty opinions about you, and your lifestyle, and it’s… god, it’s painful. 

Earlier in the night, Dirk had walked by the camera. Just inside the view. He had very gently been carrying Rose’s cat. Just turned his age the day before. You’d sent him a package that needed to be deciphered to unlock. Cute kid.

“Do you want to talk to Dave?” Rose had asked, with a smile she saved just for Dirk, usually when they played strategy games. “He’s leaving for the outer transport tomorrow.”

Her Christmas tree had looked very good for this year. She’d gone with white, this time, and you could see it in the background of the picture.

Your chest had filled with hope, need, love, he’s your little brother, and he didn’t mean it when he—

“No,” Dirk said.

He didn’t even look.

Your heart had sunk.

“Ouch, haha.”

Jade and John had gone quiet, and Rose had tried to desperately come up with a subject change.

So. 

You took the weird alien drugs.

Sighing, you take a sip of your bitter caffeine poison, and bring yourself back to where you are in the present. It makes a reeling noise, in your mind, like speeding up the audio of a movie to fast-forward.

Now. Where were we. 

The present.

The window in your bunk.

….is the only reason why you’re okay with your tiny accommodations.

Single bed, desk, desk chair (with lumbar support, which was an extra few credits per year). Small closet in wall, fits all your personal shit. Bedside table. Sink and small counter with a tiny refrigerated unit. Appearifier for food. Incinerator. Trash chute.

Smells sterile most of the time. You got a scented wall plugin. It ran out and you never replaced it.

The bathroom shit is communal, down the hall. Co-ed showers because who the fuck cares about gender in outer space like humans tend to. Aliens sure don’t, that’s for fucking sure. Half of them don’t even recognize the concept. You’ve gotten laid in there.

It was… weird.

Too many… Feet.

But the… she? Tried to eat you, after.

Jokingly? Hopefully. Fucking… aliens who eat their mates? No wonder you’d never seen a reproductive drone of the species.

But, like the others, she satisfied that bone-deep urge and loneliness. So what if she wanted to… eat you. Ugh.

You shake your head.

Anyway. The whole room arrangement is less than ten feet by six feet. It’s the smallest one on the row.

But it has the biggest window.

Aaaaaand we’re back to the window subject.

It overlooks the station, and the three local satellites are all visible at twenty-three-hundred. They’re almost like moons.

Sometimes if you close your eyes, and you imagine almost as hard as Peter Fucking Pan, you can convince yourself that the air vent below the window feels like a breeze. A nice, icy fucking cool Texas breeze.

But.

No time for that today.

Right now, it’s seven-hundred hours on the station. You have… half an hour.

You don’t have any plants to water, no pets to feed, nothing to check up on or finish at the station.

You rinse out your coffee mug, put it in the hook on the wall, and shove your feet into your boots before slipping on your shades, turning off the unit power and hoofing it out the door. After grabbing your duffle, of course.

SKAIA is bustling already when you transport out of the outer habitation ring.

You’re sure the station is probably bright and clean on the upper class habitation ring, or the commerce center, or at least the whole station was sparkling when it was first built. As it is, you see a lot of grit and grime that cleaning bots just don’t get to over enough time. There are some shoddy spray-painted and holo-emitted tags on the walls from rebellious teenagers with nothing better to do (no, seriously).

No finesse. No quality. No purpose, since there’s one gang on the station and it’s one of the kinds that you would see in an old Earthen mob movie. They don’t allow for serious competitors. 

The shitty holo-graffiti of an awesomely low-res Christmas tree on the wall in front of you makes you grin for a minute. And then it makes you frown as you step out of the ‘Transportalize!’ pad.

You’ll be gone for the holiday. Great reminder.

You snap a picture of it on your glasses anyway.

One week before Christmas. Then the holiday. The dropoff, two days later. Then four days to return, two more days on a hyperjet to get Home with enough credit in your account to last for six months.

“Two week job, two week job,” you say to yourself, turning.

Besides, it’s only taking that long because the cargo can’t be taken all the way up to hyper in space.

Grabbing your duffle bag from the luggage tube to the tune of the latest crap variation of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, you begin the long skip and hop down to the docks. The closest the transporters drop off is about a fifteen minute walk from the docks, due to Lightning Core interference. Something about technology and people getting… spliced into Ship Cores.

Thrice is enough to instate regulation while the technology is being improved.

Languages echo around you from the loudspeakers of the transportation hub.

You skim around a family of pseudopodal aliens you aren’t sure of the species of yet, and hop over their slime trail to make a left turn at the bottom corner of a terminal. There’s a bit of space rust on the walls as you jump down half a flight of stairs.

The fifth ring of the station is unsurprisingly active. The Christmas jingles above the moving sidewalks are a nice touch. However the fuck humanity managed to spread Holiday Capitalism halfway across the galaxy still escapes you.

You deftly sidestep a Salvation Army jingler (seriously, they’re all the way out here in space), and almost miss your next turn for your ship.

A shuttle full of people passes you, honking in the crowded thoroughfare.

The smell of galaxies of different food assaults you, almost too much for your waking and hungover brain. The bright lights from the terminals flash in your peripheral, around the sunglasses, and people shout everywhere. 

34DELTA, 34DELTA, 34… DELTA. There it is. 

Finally. Finally you’re out of the mess.

And yet.

Even as the door is sealing the hubbub behind you, and you’re walking down the causeway to your assigned dock in the hangar and catching your breath, they’re already shouting at you. Your copilot. Karkat Vantas, troll, rust blood, Mr. I-have-the-indecency-to-yell-at-you-first-thing-in-the-morning. There were other things on the docket and info sheet. You, regrettably, did not bother to read most of it.

“Hey,” you mutter, without trying to decipher their words yet.

Glancing at them just long enough to see that their perpetual angry face wasn’t just the photo, you walk straight to the check-in screen and sign off on your papers. The digital roster asks for a couple different forms of identification, which you have ready. One of them is human-retinal, the others are more typical.

“You got here faster than I expected, Strider, but are you planning on listening to me?” They’re asking you. Okay. So you were right. No translator. So they know English, which is always odd for trolls way out here. But. Hey. Easier for you.

The security drone flutters around you, giving you a quick scan as you send Vantas a salute.

Not answering… him?

You’ll ask later.

But generally, the male trolls are smaller than the females in adult form.

And this one… is pretty short. Shorter than you, at least. You’re like… six foot one? Last time you checked. And this troll is maybe, maybe five and a half feet. If that.

They huff, but doesn’t say much about your dismissive attitude yet. Even though it seems like they have a lot of fucking words to share. 

Something about their voice is odd, but you can’t tell what in the din of the loading docks.

“What do you want me to call you?” You ask, once the retinal scanner is done. A name, a title, familiarity. Something.

“If that’s your way of asking whether you can apply your human gender terms to me, you can call me ‘captain’,” they reply. Bristling. Like a porcupine. Looks like they’re jumping the gun on that topic. Bad experience with humans, maybe? Recently?

Rolling your eyes, you finish up with security and walk over to the launch pad to board the gangway.

“Yeah, sure, I literally didn’t ask that, but okay,” you say, your yawn the only inflection in your voice. “It’s usually easier to be in the habit of asking, as the local resident asshole human, even if I was asking, because y’know, a lot of aliens lack sexual dimorphism. Who would have thought.”

It’s uncharacteristic of you to be saying so much out loud. It’s also weird for you to be as snappish as you’re being. Was it the coffee? Your head’s still pounding, so that’s an idea, as well. And then there’s spending the holiday without your family just to be able to move back and support your kid brother. And then there’s how he treated you.

God you’re the _worst._

Yeah.

Probably just the hangover.

The ship on the inside doesn’t look new at all, but it’s solid. The machinery is whisper-quiet, and you notice a few small warning stickers that indicate being careful and holding onto things. Okay, no gravity emitters. Hence the implant, you guess.

There’s the cockpit, which turns out to be fairly spacious, there’s the storage, the sleeping quarters, lavatory, and a small kitchen area. There’s also a rec area off the kitchen with a table and a sofa, which is nice. It’s about the size of a two-bedroom apartment, excluding the cargo hold. It’s nice.

 

Nice.

Vantas is rubbing their hand across their face and snarling into their palm when you look up from dropping your bag in the lower bunk. They’ve taken the top one. It’s okay. You like low, closed spaces.

“Sorry. I’ve been spending too much time with...” Vantas tells you, still forcefully stretching their skin. “You can call me by your male pronouns if you like, or ‘Vantas’.”

“No first name?” you ask blankly, edging around him to get to the front of the ship in order to run your diagnostic.

“No,” he replies, practiced. “First name is earned.”

The specs of the job are open on the screen for your review. Simple. Travel, drop off, collect empties, very typical.

“Karkat Vantas, specialty navigation pilot, mutant blood, born and raised on the Mars Colony in the Solaris System,” he informs you. You look at him out of the side of your eye. Ah. So that’s how he knows English so well. Mars has an American troll colony on it. Mutant. That explains the gray logo. Mutants don’t get culled anymore, as far as you know. How long did it take him to come out of the woodwork after that legislation was passed?

A second of dry silence only punctuated by the sputter of a failing engine compartment. 

“Not like you haven’t already read my file, but… Dave Strider, lead pilot and engineer. Human, Texas.”

It kinda hurts to hold your eyes at this position for this long.

Vantas’s suit is a dark maroon with black accents. No bright mutant red anywhere. Or… lemon? Was that the other color? You assume red because of the Lowblood maroon. His eyes… yep. Red. There was a resurgence of… yeah, that was it, lime-bloods found on an old troll planet. All hell broke loose, for whatever reason. You have yet to meet one.

The color of his blood, however inconsequential, strikes you with relief. Lowbloods, or so they call them, are usually more down to earth and easier to get along with. Less likely to talk to you about genocide.

Back when trolls and humans first met on the outskirts of your solar system, there was… strife. It was very quickly resolved with a simple treaty and minimal violence. An easy alliance between humanity and their current empress formed. On Earth they’d called her a young bleeding-heart liberal. On Alternia they call her the Condesce. On SKAIA they call her Condie. You had a different troll copilot once that just called her Feferi. Apparently the titles are inherited.

“Dave Strider, engineer specialization. I’m from Texas. Nice to meet you, Vantas.”

You look back at the ship specs and you’re mostly content with what you see. The diagnostic was run already, so you just need to manually recheck landing gear and the Fusion Core before you are set to go. They would have looked over all that already, but you always like to make sure.

“Damn this ship is nice. You’d think they’d be able to afford stronger gravity emitters, though,” you mumble. Vantas slides into the nav seat next to you.

“Do you have your regulator?” Vantas asks you, after about two solid minutes of mindbreaking silence.

You pull down the back of your suit’s neck and turn, to show him.

You’re not sure of the medical mumbo-jumbo behind it, but the tiny square device is made to last forever, and help to keep the body circulating all its shit so that your muscles and heart don’t atrophy.

It’s not necessary on such a short flight, but you were given one by the company anyway. It helps with nausea and so on. And it’s great cause in the last ten years they perfected the ones that would just attach to the skin on the surface with a tiny micro abrasion, instead of needing a surgical implant.

Well. It would be great if you hadn’t had to have the implant anyway because your boss is a douche.

Vantas does the same, and you nod.

“We at least got quiet vents and darkeners for our sleeping area. Better rest that way,” Vantas says, very obviously tempering his voice. He’s calming down, though. Maybe in reaction to your outward smoothness of speech? That tends to happen, at least.

You decide to throw him a bone, maybe try to start a comradery. You’ll be living with him for two weeks, after all. The last time you had to have a copilot for a transport mission, you hadn’t gotten along at all. Of course, they were an avian species. As a result, they were space sick for a majority of the ordeal.

“Ah yes,” you reply, looking up at him fully and quirking a brow behind your sunglasses. “The sacrifices we intelligent beings must make in order to have comfort.”

Vantas snorts, takes the bone, and tears into it.

He crosses his arms, and stares ahead, waiting for you to finish.

While he’s not looking, you give him another once-over.

Like you noticed earlier, his flight suit is maroon with black accents, while yours is black with red. It works. Imagine if you both wore the same colors. That’d be awkward.

He’s got a thatch of dark black hair, and nestled in it are two… nubby horns. Ah. There they are.

...you observe like you’re narrating a goddamn NOVA holo-documentary. Jesus, you sound vapid when you’re tired. 

His teeth seem sharp enough, and his jaw holds more tension than a tightrope. It’s tempting to try to make that rope snap. But that’d be a real jerk move. And definitely not conducive to a good working relationship.

Besides the fact that you grew out of pigtail-pulling more than a decade ago.

Like all adult trolls, his carapace is a dark gray, almost black. He’d be hard to see in the dark.

Time for a science lesson.

‘But professor strider, wouldn’t the shiny carapace make it easier for them to reflect light and therefore be more obvious in the dark and way more vulnerable on their hostile planet?’

‘Why yes, if adult trolls weren’t generally covered in a paper-thin layer of velveteen fuzz above the harder shell-imitation exterior.’

It’s take-off time.

When you look over at Vantas, he’s yawning. Head tilted back, eyes shut, pointed jaw set open like a bear trap. 

His thick red tongue absently wets his lower lip, carving out over the jagged fangs like bait. He sighs, and his eyes flicker open to nail you with a stare. Expression entirely unreadable. Something in the fit of his gaze makes you feel less like an apex predator, and more like dinner. 

And you kind of like it. 

All things considered, maybe you could enjoy this trip a little more than the abysmal amount you’ve assigned yourself. 

Then your stomach seizes, and you feel your hangover forty times over. Curling over yourself, you groan and wish just a little for a quick death. Why the fuck did you take that shit.

Right. Delivery mission. Get home. See Dirk. 

You glance at Vantas again, and he’s got his arms crossed, waiting and furrowing his brow at something unseen outside his forward window. 

A tiny bit of blood weakly struggles south, and you consider it again briefly.

Not a bad option. 

And you wouldn’t see him again, right? 

What a golden opportunity.

And then once more strikes the nausea pangs. You straighten through them, and take a deep, concentrated breath. 

Annoying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! told you i was working on something big! hehe
> 
> this whole thing minus the epilogue is written already! so gear up for some Dave Strider Feels Fest
> 
> i _am_ currently working on the next chapter of "If I'm awkward..." so be on the lookout for that in the next week or so if you're reading it! 
> 
> but i wanted to try something new, here, and ive been itching to write scifi, so here goes! i hope yall enjoy, and i would love to know what you think and any questions you might have! 
> 
> <3<3<3 i hope yall are having a wonderful day, and I'll see you on thursday!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“for years ive drifted_   
>  _further and further_   
>  _into the unknown_   
>  _further and further_   
>  _into the unknown”_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxzN91Z-eQQ)

“I’m getting everything taken down, did everything in the ship check out?” Vantas asks you. His voice chirps on the end.

What is _that?_

“Yeah,” you mutter in reply, looking at him out of the corner of your eye.

You see the incision scar, just a bare raised line on the underside of his throat.

Is that… yeah.

Modulated echoes and hollow tones of an android, but coming from this troll’s chest. How did he get to needing that particular piece of equipment? An accident while working on a ship? A chronic illness?

It needs maintenance soon. The creaks and groans on the edges of his longer vowels are enough indication without him seeming to constantly talk at just enough above a normal volume for it to be annoying with your headache.

You could fix it.

Equius builds biological enhancements for a living, and you worked with him for a time. He was a creep but taught you some handy shit about repairs.

Man, and wouldn’t you _love_ to get closer to that voice. It growls and chips away at your solid resolve to not want to jump this grumpy alien. The resolve you had to form about twenty minutes ago. Screw Rose’s little disapproving tone in the back of your head.

Lust?

Oh no, whatever shall we do.

The notion has you _positively_ pearl-clutching. 

It’s almost like your brain always has to do a double-take, even if you’ve screwed your way through three different sectors of SKAIA.

Apparently your brain has an answer for you as to what should be done. Your head throbs, and the passive inkling toward even maybe getting frisky with this alien seeps through the cracks again. It’s like your head is doing it every half a second, with bursts of memory from some kind of shitty dream you probably had in the past. Dirk and voices and God, but it makes your nausea skyrocket. 

Takeoff is in about four minutes, and you’re going through the basic checks and balances while Vantas secures everything to their places on board.

 _“Are y’all ready for this?”_ a voice rings over the system.

“Yes,” you say, tiredly. 

Whoever let this person see Space Jam needs to cool their jets.

 _“Good. Get buckled in, and we’re gonna get you out early,”_ the voice says, going to a bit of a calmer tone.

“Shipment coming in?”

_“Yeah. A fish shipment from Teflona 9. They offered to hang back ‘cause they’ll take a bit and you guys are a smooth exit.”_

“Alright,” you say, and flip the four control switches to heat up the thrusters, as well as the secondary coolant cell to make absolutely sure that the heat stays away from the insulated cargo.

It’s mainly a magnetic pulley system that will get you to the gate.

The comm voice clears whatever serves as its throat, and when it comes back, it’s all professional.

Routine, scripted routine, the same old slightly dangerous routine. 

_“Pilots Strider and Vantas, are you prepared for takeoff?”_

Vantas slides himself into his seat and adjusts the straps on his chair. His feet flop a bit, and he puts himself down with the force of a bell falling from a tower. Testing his last bit of full gravity. You did the same a few minutes ago, you don’t blame him. “Yes, sir,” he says, at the same time you press your okay button. It’s unnecessary at this point, but it helps them differentiate between responses.

The ship shakes slightly under you as you switch on the autopilot and engage the core. Something in the cabin rattles, and Vantas looks a little irritated. It must be a chair or some trash. Maybe an appliance. Something that couldn’t be fastened, no matter the tries to the contrary. Vantas seems like a bit of a perfectionist. You don’t fault him that.

_“Ready yourselves in the exit lane for your ejection. Destination, Second Ring of Nare-ev 8734, Krielle Space, colony zero-three.”_

You pull into the lane with the safeguarded assistance of the magnetic pulley barrier, but mostly of your own volition. You’re a pretty good fucking pilot. They just require the barriers in here, to control the space better. There have been… incidents.

 _“Prepare for ejection in 10,”_ the voice confirms once you’re in place.

Every time, without fail, while the countdown is happening, it strikes you that this all is so very impersonal.

Nothing like the movies.

No matter what John would like to believe.

This in particular is looking to be a fairly boring trip. Krielle space has a lot of outposts that contain aliens that are neutral, so long as you stay out of range. The insignia on your ship will signal no-attack to scouts. Navigating around them will be a little complicated, but that’s essentially the most interesting thing on this trip. And Vantas can set an autopilot course around it if you need him to.

Not that you’ll want him to.

You’re getting paid big bucks to cover for a few people that didn’t want to make the trip.

It didn’t even strike you to ask for Vantas’s reasons to be here with you until the end of that very thought.

…Not like it’s really any of your business.

Your headache makes you even more uninterested in finding out.

_“Five, four, three…”_

You ready the gears, set it in forward, crank the flaps and open the manifold.

And it’s time.

Vantas has his legs almost boredly crossed as you fly through the tunnel at multiple times the speed of sound. Multi-lightspeed will happen once you’re further out of range.

* * *

 

Once you have your primary course set, and everything is looking fairly golden on the autonav, you peel yourself out of your chair.

The mostly-zero-gravity has set in completely, by now. It’s always odd to experience.

Vantas took himself out of his chair twenty minutes ago to fuck with the GPS or whatever it’s called, so you can tell he’s already acclimated. The bitterness at that fact just serves to make your headache worse.

A whole hour of slowly working up to speed, and resetting things, and making sure the ship isn’t going to do anything crazy like explode, and you’re ready to take something for your head.

Maybe when you do, you’ll feel more… sociable? Or something. 

You’re halfway to your bunk when Vantas speaks to you from the navigation screen.

“Let’s get this out of the way because you don’t seem to be the chatty type,” he begins. And oh good. It’s looking like one of _these._

“Neither of us are on this trip because we want to be,” he states, the obvious. “I need to pay off my hatchmate’s medical bills, and maybe get myself a space-trained cat for long-distance missions.”

He sort-of-stands there, quiet, while you register the information, and down two pain pills and chug a bottle of water.

When you finish, and still don’t say anything, he turns to face you.

“Well?” he asks, like you’re supposed to have answered. Christ, you’re tired.

It hits you like the worst kind of bone-weary malaise, and all of your irritation toward Vantas fades.

As well as your attraction, funnily enough. 

Like, totally fades.

You’re not being very nice today, are you?

Did you dream about something weird or bad?

“What kind of cat did you want?” you ask, not wanting to reveal your own information yet. You float in place two inches off the floor, glad for your jacket and shades to hide your hunching shoulders and shifting eyes.

He almost legitimately scowls at you, even more than his seemingly-normal facial contortion. His arms cross, but he answers you anyway.

“It’s not an earthling breed. Still soft and purrs, and it’s fluffy, but they have unquenchable loyalty and longer claws and much sharper teeth,” he begins.

Ticking off finely-tapered fingers like numbers on a clock.

“They can help guard me from minor harm if I end up needing it and I’m alone. They can eat cat food. That’s useful. They don’t speak humanoid language, also good, less annoying than Lying Cats, and they’re average four feet from nose to hocks,” he gets out, somehow all in one breath.

The listing seems like he’s doing it almost therapeutically, but with a side note of the unquenchable need to sass you for avoiding his question.

And his voice chip doesn’t even crack once this time. You’re amazed.

He fixes you with his hot stare again. Christ.

“Sounds expensive,” you try, still not moving.

“Strider,” he starts, frustrated with your lack of compliance, and you wave him down. It sounded like he was thinking about yelling. Not good.

“I want to be able to afford a better place for my younger bro. And I wanna stay home with him for some vacation time and look for one of those boring on-planet jobs. They’re dull as fuck but it’d be worth it to not be away all the time. Especially since he’s still a little kid. And I ain’t got it in me to be a cop,” you say.

All at once, that whole paragraph of inconsequential and boring information.

Vantas softens at the notion that you’d take a bad job just to stay home.

You all know this feeling. All transport pilots do.

Well, almost all.

He definitely does.

He’s part of the almost.

The sympathy creases in Vantas’s face and folds into complete understanding, and you look down and away.

* * *

 

He doesn’t ask for any more until your first meal together. Dinner of sorts.

You’re sitting across from him at a table.

You’ve been traveling for maybe sixteen hours, worked up to the fastest speed this bucket of grinding gears can go without endangering shit.

For a few hours, you had restlessly napped in your bunk, drifting in a very annoying way, knocking knees against the sides of the cell padding.

Vantas’s is bigger. Better for your long legs, probably. He’d definitely claimed it as his own, so there’s no taking it and ignoring protest. Maybe he’d trade?

…or share?

The spark of attraction lights itself up again for a brief half-life before sputtering away.

He’d probably just. Look down his flat nose at you, and frown some more.

For some reason, Vantas doesn’t seem the type to accept what you’d offer.

You’re not accustomed to asking for more than you’re given without some kind of repayment. Usually the repayment is enjoyable.

It satisfies you.

At least, on some kind of very basic and probably fucked-up level.

Of course, there’s also the unspoken rule that the sleeping slots are first come first serve on these kinds of missions.

Giving up on sleep that first cycle was inevitable after some time.

You had abandoned your bunk in favor of drifting in front of the window, until you had gotten too hungry to put off the growling in your stomach.

Your homeostatic regulator beeps very subtly, very gently under your skin, as you sit at this table. Like a mosquito flying five feet away in the total silence of a late autumn night. And _just_ as annoying.

Vantas has picked up a novel since departure, and is happily reading. Halfway through it, already. Even while eating.

Your eyes glaze over his too-straight posture, and drift to the window beyond his head again. 

Dark against dark.

Space is so empty beyond those windows.

There are handles to hold, for you to lead yourself into the chair you’re already seated in.

Oh yeah.

You’d almost forgotten.

Least favorite part of minimal gravity. Eating.

Vantas is similarly griping, through the thick spine of his book.

His claws are picking at a nutrition label that’s written in Alternian calligraphy, and he’s muttering.

> “…meals always taste like building materials, even with salt.”

Despite your rough start, it feels much better to be sitting beside him than apart. The space loneliness is already kicking in.

It’s probably not a good sign.

The chicken substitute and stale coffee from the food storage taste like sand on your tongue. Even with the gravy pouch. Whatever vegetable they put in with it is limp and flavorless at best. It’s all in tubes, ready to be squeezed like yogurt into your mouth.

> “-fucking imbeciles can’t even make space travel any more comfortable—“ more muttering.

Meanwhile, you let yourself ignore him, and fill your own thoughts with memories of actual meals.

Man. Christmas… turkey dinner. Or ham. Sweet potato salad. What is Rose going to make this year?

Will she save you leftovers?

“I don’t really understand family, being a troll, but I would love to see my lusus again. He has a new wriggler by now, but wants me to visit anyway.”

The burst of slightly louder words catches you off guard.

Vantas is talking about himself… huh?

Is he empathetic or something?

What, no, fuck bonding. You reserve the right to be a mostly asocial and boring individual with a tendency toward self-imposed solitude. Rose would probably say some nonsense like “you crave the attention and affection of others but distrust to the extent that you force aloofness.”

She’s full of shit.

Totally full of shit.

As soon as you look at Vantas, eyebrows raised, his exterior almost seems to harden, and the frown re-finds his brow.

Embarrassment?

He sets his book down gently over the table next to him, and it floats just barely, corner grazing the linoleum. Amazing thing about min-grav, it doesn’t just make you float everywhere. Things have minimal gravitational pull in a… downward fashion. But there’s some kind of interference, and anything not nailed down floats at least a couple inches off the surface.

If it doesn’t bounce off first.

He puts his food down, too.

Huh.

Maybe… he wants you to share more?

“You have family, right?” he asks, next.

What...

What kind of troll is this?

Usually, they don’t care at all. Their rough exteriors bleed to the interiors. Literally. They don’t even have external genitals. Violent species, and all that. More on the social aspect, though, trolls are… tough. And generally unsociable.

It’s not like… he’s not hitting on you pale-ways, is he? Only explanation for kindness you can think of. That’s a troll thing, right, quadrant romance? 

It’s either quadrants, or the need to stand on your head while performing a mating dance. The latter doesn’t seem as likely.

All kinds of rendezvous out here in the big black void. And you’re down with… most of it. 

You just have a very sizeable and _reasonable_ doubt about your ability to help people emotionally.

There’s insurmountable evidence that you’re completely hopeless at being good for other people.

But...

But.

For some reason, probably an acute case of fucking vanity, you decide to share anyway.

“I miss my kid brother. I promised I’d take care of him. And hey. Maybe in a few years he can start coming with me, and I can get back out here. He doesn’t meet requirements yet,” you offer, taking another bite.

You’re not really sure what you’re feeling right now. Or why you’re… talking to him.

Something about him is very easy to talk to. To spill to.

 _That_ realization is a loaded gun.

“He’s only seven,” you add, just for the information.

Maybe it’s the holidays making you into a fucking sap.

Do trolls have Christmas? They have twelfth-perigee’s-kill-fest or something, right? Do they send each other gifts?

Huh.

Is Vantas feeling lonely, too?

Fucking fast for you to start talking to someone about feelings, of all things. And a troll, no less.

Is it the same for him?

Do you just… click well? Since when is that a real thing that happens?

Since you started talking, Vantas’s face has opened more. He’s seemed to unclench, at least a tiny bit, and his fingers are messing around with his cubes of grubsauce and whatever meat that is. Absently. He’s… enjoying talking to you about how you feel.

You decide to… keep talking.

“Dirk was so upset when I left,” you try, poking. Vantas perks. “He didn’t want to see me.”

“You’re doing this _for_ him, though, right?” He asks, brows pulling up just so slightly from his perpetual scowl.

Confusion?

“Kids are funny like that,” you explain. “And a little fickle. It’s not that unusual, honestly. He doesn’t like me being away so much.”

Karkat frowns a little, considering. His claws tap a pattern on the tabletop. He’s staring downward, away from you this time. You can barely see a reflection of yourself in the window. Shades, not taken off the entire tip thus far. Stoic. God, but don’t you hate it.

Tick, tick, tick, tick. Go the claws.

Tick, tick tick, ticktick tock.

The tock is the thumbclaw.

You have to shake your head to rid of the sudden and inexplicable image of feathers dissolving into water.

Vantas’s fingers stop tapping, and he heaves a resigned breath. An absent claw rips through a few pages of the corner of his book.

“My moirail decided to leave me last week,” he begins, and _oh._ “So excuse me if I ask entirely too grubfistingly personal questions.”

So he _is_ hitting on you?

“Why’d they leave?” you ask, a personal question to return a personal question.

Maybe also because. The moirail thing has always sounded ridiculously and embarassingly good to you. Even if you have no real inkling of what it’s about. Besides best buds, close friends, a little forehead kissing, hugs, purring. And emotional investment and sharing and comfort of griefs.

Maybe to receive? It would be nice? Even if you can’t give.

What’s would the harm be in just… going… with him on it?

Man, you need to get out of fucking space. 

You’re turning into one culturally insensitive asshat.

“I told him that I wasn’t compatible with just having one quadrant,” Vantas hisses.

Too late, you realize the hiss is at you. And it’s a negative noise.

You’ve been pitched a volley in return.

His eyes are a little burning. Okay. Asking about ex-moirails is not okay. Noted.

You hold up your hands, facing him.

“My bad,” you say, food tube hanging out of your mouth.

Vantas holds his ire like a lover. He holds it, and then lets it fall to the bed.

And as his ire falls, so do his shoulders. An exhale, and the rusted fog of his anger dissipates.

He’s… still in pain.

But what did you get from this.

That he’s… not limited to quadrants?

That’s interesting.

He lets his frown roll around in his mouth, counterweight to the pull of his eyebrows as he stares longingly at his food.

Vantas pulls himself out of his chair and throws his garbage in the incinerator chute.

He heads to his bunk, bags under his eyes practically pulling on the floor.

You’re too awake to sleep or watch a movie.

You move to sit in your helm.

You watch the stars pass.

You think of your family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys and happy thursday! sorry this was a bit late in the evening, i wanted to post it last night but life got in the way! haha
> 
> i love yall and hope you have a good night! see you sunday, and remember i love feedback and to know what you thought!!! if y wanna comment of course :) 
> 
> hope yall have a good night, once again! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“and i wonder_   
>  _where have you gone?_   
>  _and i wonder_   
>  _what have you done?_   
>  _what have you done?”_

One Hundred and Twenty Hours on the ship and you’re making pretty good travel time.

You and Vantas have been sleeping in shifts; every sixteen hours you have a shift for eight.

The numbers endlessly tumble around in your head.

0-32, no one slept. 33-48, you were awake, Vantas asleep for the second eight. 49-56, you tried to sleep, took a pill for it, awake for sixteen, sleep for eight, awake for sixteen, sleep for eight, on and on an on.

The shift of it is a no-brainer when you have a copilot.

Vantas sleeps in your second eight hours awake, or at least that’s what he _should_ be doing.

He seems to not be sleeping much at all, but you don’t ask. Some people just don’t. Especially the trolls that don’t take sopor to induce it. 

They’re addicted to it from a young age, on most colonies, their lusii using it to stave off tiny teeth and the hyper-aggression that’s natural to their babies as a genetically-predisposed defense mechanism. You’re not fully sure about Vantas’s sopor or sleeping habits, whether it’s just a him thing, or a troll thing. It’s also none of your business. You got a little closer when you shared things about yourselves, but not that close.

 

To be fair, it’s also not uncommon to have trouble sleeping in space.

The two of you sit together in silence more often than not during the eight hours you are both awake.

Occasionally conversation happens, to keep you both sane, but none of it is important. No stories, no getting-to-know-you questions. Mainly complaining about working, about political views, about the ship, about the book Vantas is reading. The book conversations, more often than not, involve him going on a lengthy and useless diatribe, and you just sitting and listening to his voice, and his voice box’s seldom but occasional quirks. 

In your eight hours of lonely downtime, there are a lot of things to do, surprisingly.

Besides checking destination and coordinates and flying the goddamn ship.

There’s a relaxation station in the room adjacent to the kitchen area. It’s got exercise equipment, a television and movie screen, shelves with digital readers to plug into your watch, some puzzles for your brain.

It’s just slightly more than basic stuff for a ship.

This one happens to have some newer titles in the entertainment.

You spend half the time exercising, and half the time watching senseless television, maybe jerking off if you really feel like it, and playing around with brain teasers. There’s an archaic rubik’s cube in the hatch with the little brain teasers, and that consumes a good part of three waking hours sitting at the helm. 

Occasionally you’ll open a history book projection. 

There’s not any laundry to do, not any cleaning to do, not really much of anything in the way of chores.

You imagine Vantas spends his alone time much the same way.

You think about him in your spare time, as well.

Turning facts over like old and rotting leaves in your head.

You still haven’t asked him whether or not you could take a look at his voice modulator.

It’s inside him, of course, but a digital x-ray and proximal work with laser instruments never really did much harm. And it’s not too difficult to lift the section of uncannily realistic artificial skin and work on it.

Assuming he has one of those models, of course. They’re the most common.

Outsiders often view you as someone with more knowledge about… robots, and shit.

And you do have some knowledge, they’re not wrong.

But they don’t know Dirk. They wouldn’t be saying that if they saw you side by side.

That kid can eat you out of house and home when it comes to surpassing your knowledge. He bowls you over on a daily basis with how quickly he picks these things up. His robotics class is filled with kids more than three years older than him. And yet, there he is. Out-scoring them all. You’re so fucking proud of him. 

Maybe you need to introduce him to more friends.

He claims that he has several, and they’re just too far away. 

You believe him. Knowing how far away your own friends were, when you met.

Jade’s not even from Earth.

Kind of like Vantas.

Who reads with his long fingers plucking the life out of each page.

His careful frown that just sits, at home, on his face.

His attentiveness when you choose to talk to him.

It’s fucking addictive, being given that attention by a stranger. Even such minor, _minor_ attention.

And so in the past few days, you’ve carved it gently away from yourself, and let it crash to the ground. Broad topics, nothing too personal, cutting yourself off before you begin.

It had seemed like a good idea in the beginning to just. Let him be nice to you. And be nice in return. And the hope and promise in his sanguine eyes, mixed with the pain of loss… it made you want to be there. Stay there. Huddle yourself comfortably in him, let him do the troll thing you think he wants to do and unabashedly mooch off of his very clear subconscious desire to get to know you.

You can’t, though.

It’s never as safe as you want it to be.

Besides the fact that the idea makes you feel like a xenophobic asshole.

In retrospect, it seems a little rude to assume he would want to give you that kind of care.

You’d be a rebound, even if he wanted you.

Even if just for fourteen days.

But it’s also… longingly painful.

And you run on the treadmill with the weights on your ankles, and think of him.

And watch him as he wakes up.

And pass him on your way to a shower and a restless nap.

The smell of sleep lingers on Vantas, drifting by and touching your cheeks and nose, whispering a lie into your ears as he watches you just barely float around him.

* * *

 

It’s hour One Hundred And Forty Two (day six and two hours until day seven) when you get a transmission from Rose. Twenty six hours before Christmas back on Earth. Two hours before your copilot is supposed to go on waking shift.

You’re sleepy, yawning with almost every exhale, eyes drooping. Soon you’ll need to take your sleeping pill, and then you can take over the snooze duty from Vantas.

You huddle down, crossing your arms over your chest, tucking your sweater more firmly about yourself.

_“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, Dave. Kanaya sends her regards, in those words exactly.”_

Rose’s face is soft, familiar. Shrewd, knowing, but still full of that half-smile that you know is her version of affection for you. God, you miss her desperately.

It’s just her face, in a box in the center of the large window projection before you. Face and torso.

She’s wearing a sweater that matches the one you’ve got slung over your flex suit. She knitted both of them last year.

_“I hope I find you well. Food preparations are already under way, and I hope you’re getting along well with your copilot. And Merry Christmas to you both, if this is late in getting to you.”_

Her face creases, briefly, and you wonder why.

She tells you.

_“I don’t really want to embitter this message with the faults of what’s been happening lately, but…”_

You tense, preparing yourself.

The chair arm squeaks noisily under your grip.

_“Dirk misses you. Terribly.”_

A part of you dies a little, scrambling up into this tiny and shriveled stone in your gut. He.

He misses you.

And you left him.

Rose seems to shake her head a bit, and the video goes all weird and lags for a second. When it comes back to full clarity, Rose has very clearly tried to move onto a different topic.

On the edge of your seat, tense as a taut bow, you watch as she smiles and nods, and leans aside so that you can see the tree in the background. “Your presents are under the tree for us all, you’ll be glad to know. And we’ll be certain to save yours for when you get back.”

You choke a little.

God, space is doing things to you.

And then. Rose… scrunches again.

Something in her falls a bit, and she once more gives up the façade that everything's just peachy.

Rose was always good at that.

_“We love you. Dirk said that he loves you, too,”_ she softly murmurs into the screen.

She made him say that, one way or another.

_“And no. I did not make him say it.”_

Yeah, right.

There’s a pause in her speech. An oven beeps in the background, she tries to wrestle on her shrewd smile. Static crackles in the connection.

You’re so glad it isn’t a live communication feed.

She sets her shoulders, looks straight into the camera, and gives up on the smile entirely.

That’s the Rose you know so well.

The Rose that will not be burdened by the weight of problems when she could confront you instead.

And there she was, trying so hard to keep to a script for you.

_“Look. I don’t know quite what occurred. But Dirk was crying and… said that he doesn’t hate you. Why did he say that?”_

You reel, slightly. Everything goes still, everything goes harsh and too bright for all of a minute.

It gets blurry, you stop breathing, start tensing. Every muscle in you at once, just tense all together.

Your legs are jolting up and down, your hands are shaking, and you’re…

 

He said… he said he doesn’t. Hate you?

 

But he was so mad, before. He was so angry at you leaving. You were sure it was true. Settled in the fact that it was true, and willing to deal with it for as long as it took. 

Hot tears drip down your face and off your chin, cheeks, nose. They float off before you, even, in a very slow decline toward the ground. Fuck. 

You have to push up your fucking sunglasses so that they don’t get wet.

And you’re not even there to accept the apology.

_“I have to go now, Dave. But just remember that we love you. And Dirk said Christmas can wait until you get back. We’re humoring him. It’s just a few days, after all.”_

Like that, anticlimactic and sore, the transmission ends.

The screen goes black, and you’re left barely floating there in front of it.

Crying, head hurting beyond belief.

Clutching your sweater to yourself.

 

“Strider? Are you okay?” A voice rings out.

Vantas’s voice.

Before you can think about why it might be a bad idea, you turn to him.

You realize your shades are still up a moment too late.

Vantas recoils from the look of struck tragedy on your face.

You’re an ugly crier, you know that.

Red and splotchy, stuffy nose, snot, tears, swollen face and eyes.

Vantas hovers just ten feet away.

His hand reaches out, book still clutched in his fingers.

He notices the offending object, and retracts the hand as if stung. 

Vantas looks everywhere but at you, scrambling for the scattered words like he’s dropped a glass jar full of marbles.

“I couldn’t sleep any more, and I wanted to read. I’m sor—“

“Don’t be,” you tell him, lightning fast.

You reach up, flip your shades down.

How embarrassing.

Vantas’s eyes look struck, again, as you push off the couch.

He doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself.

You pass, gripping wall handles to pull yourself along as quickly as you can go from him.

“I’m headed to bed early,” you tell him.

“Don’t join me, er. Bother me. Unless you have a really _good_ reason,” you add.

That particular vocal slip-up was the worst one yet. Accidentally propositioning him, when you’re at your most vulnerable, and have nothing to follow up.

But something in you shifts slightly sideways, and you very purposefully play it to the fullest.

Vantas scowls, disappointed, at you as you look him deliberately up and down.

Proposition out of nowhere? Usually guaranteed avoidance.

He doesn’t answer except to wrench his mouth in another direction.

Stress shoddily patched and wadded up and shoved away into your pocket, you take a minute to pause and stare at his eyes. They’re matching yours, even through your shades. He’s close, maybe a foot away. And his anger is hot on you, his body curving toward you like he’s confused between leaving and taking you up on the offer. Like he’s coiled for a fight, sleepy and lithe form intimidatingly dark in the burnished steel and white interior of the vessel. 

It would be so easy to close the gap, and a tinge of desperation makes you crave cinching it together and having him distract you. 

If he decides to not rip you to shreds, first, that is. 

But Vantas doesn’t move. 

His face goes back to a half-calm, his body unwinds from its crescent in the door, and he straightens. A rejection. And he looks like he wants to say something more, wants to try to comfort you again. And be sympathetic. 

It makes you wrinkle your nose, and something sting in the back of your nostrils.

Pity is the last thing you need. 

You pass him completely.

Vantas hasn’t moved by the time you close the hatch to the living quarters.

* * *

 

You wake up to… 

 

…

 

...something. 

It takes a good two minutes to acclimate to the light, and feeling solid again.

It’s dark, and there’s a shuffling by your side.

A touch warns you of what to come, and you don’t reject it.

Hands travel around your middle, looping about your ribs and stomach.

“Wha?” you ask, blearily. Trying to turn and assess. It’s a weak effort, and you don’t make it very far.

Your sleeping brain wants to stay here, wants to willfully ignore what you’re not asking.

“You said to join you with good reason,” comes a familiar growly voice.

You go still.

Strangely, within you, there’s not a question about his statement.

Even more strangely, you’re not wanting his touches to be gone.

Vantas’s fingers stay outside your sleep fatigues, his body wraps about you like a limpet.

And he’s so _warm._

Loose clothing, floating, a warm body wrapped around yours.

The small bedspace seems so much more comfortable, now.

“Nav’g’tion?” you slur.

Relaxing, somehow completely mollified, letting him envelop you in himself.

 

You don’t really care why.

With each passing second, he grips you just a little more tightly, wears into a few more of your sleepy soul’s cracks.

As he spoons you in the soft space, in the dark of the slot, you melt into him.

Your body, starved for touch, starved for affection, just lets him blanket himself over you.

And it’s all so fine, you never want to move.

Vantas’s soft, velveteen skin rubs silkily against the back of your neck. His nose presses into your nape.

A warm exhale on your spine.

A relieved sigh.

He’s been needing it, too.

“I have a few hours until the next change will need to be overseen,” Vantas whispers, dusting your shoulder blade with the lazy and drowsy puff of warmth from his lungs. The modulator in his throat croaks lazily as a purr ebbs in and out of his words.

You don’t bother to think about it for even a minute.

You drift into sleep, then briefly back out.

This repeats when a cold nose draws a line on your spine. And when warm fingers clutch into the fabric over your stomach. And when he murmurs something in a language you don’t understand. 

The whole feeling _inflates like a balloon_ in your hands. Stretching the skin with warm air from his lungs. It’s bright, and light, and it seeps softly like a summer breeze into the corners of your heart. 

And you let yourself dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey yall, heres another chapter
> 
> hope everyone is having a great day, ill see you on thursday for more crapola <3 
> 
> as usual i love feedback and comments and all that so lemme know if there was anything in particular etc etc
> 
>  
> 
> ((things have been rough lately so um. if ur waiting on the new chapter of my other thing, im trying, haha. im stuck on a sentence transition or something and i know how the rest of that story is going to go, but yes. please forgive me, im trying to get it done by the end of next week. this is the last thing ill say about this, sorry for clogging up space))


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> now with a piece of beautiful fanart by my friend [notedchampagne](http://notedchampagne.tumblr.com/post/160149146495/and-its-all-so-fine-you-never-want-to-move) on tumblr! go check it out it's amazing!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“space is older_   
>  _than the air moving in and out_   
>  _of your lungs_   
>  _the air moving in and out_   
>  _of your lungs”_

Breath in your mouth, and you’re not entirely sure if it’s yours. 

You can tell it’s a dream this time. 

It’s too sterile to be reality, too free of cosmic shapes and grease stains. It’s just composed of flat planes and the bare mention of agony that may have once existed here. There’s no death in this world, none of the hollow emptiness of loss. 

And you’re nude. That’s a pretty stellar fucking hint. 

A figure is sitting in a chair, in the middle of a dimly lit room. 

Your chest feels fit to burst and your arms are lightly shaking. 

But it’s warm here, there’s comfortable heat that feels like September in Austin. 

The air in your lungs chokes on a vowel, and something unfurls from around you with the faint beep of a warning message. It turns into a tree of ash, sprouting leaves that have no water but still live. “It’s my father,” they say, and the ash crumbles in your hands like the texture of kinetic sand. 

It’s cold, after that. 

Not terribly uncomfortable cold, but. 

The back of your neck catches a draft. 

“Vantas?” you ask the figure in the chair, inexplicably. 

And there, it turns. 

And the relief that goes through you when it is Vantas is indescribable.

You’re not sure why right now, but he should be mad at you. Right? For something. 

He looks your nude body up and down, and raises an eyebrow. 

Wait, why is he here? In your dream? 

“__________,” he says.

The words fling at your face, catch on your nose and eyelashes like stray tendrils of seaweed in a high tide. You scramble to brush them off, and look at him again once you’re no longer blinded. 

He speaks again, wordless and full of words simultaneously. 

The crocheted reality around you brightens, and then dims. 

A touch of warmth hits your cheek, like lips or a palm, then your temple, and Vantas adds “_______.”

A smirk sits comfortably on his lips, and you watch it linger for a moment longer as the words shout directly into one ear and out the other. 

When you look back up at his eyes, they’re frowning at you. 

Fire, fire,

“I hate you,” Dirk’s voice says, and. 

You’re falling.

-

* * *

You wake up alone, again. 

Arms automatically stretching back, reaching for someone who’s not there. 

Back creaking, fingers rigid from slumber.

Was that… was that a dream? 

The lights come on in the bunk, and you feel the ship rattle gently. 

Well, _that’s_ not entirely normal in outer space.

“Computer, status,” you say blearily. Before you remember that you don’t have an audio-interactive system on this piece of shit. 

And you have to groan and curl into yourself before rolling over and pressing the ‘status’ button on your bunk-access display.

“The _Navigator_ is piloting through an Asteroid Field,” the computer says, a blank and barely audible monotone. “Danger, negative. Path clear, the field is regular and slow. Shields are at One Hundred Percent.”

Oh, okay. 

He’s got it, then. 

The fact that you hadn’t woken up yet shows the truth of the computer’s assessment. 

But it’s not often you get to observe someone else piloting something like this. And since you’re awake, you might as well go out and watch. Right?

Looking at the clock garners you the understanding that you only slept for four hours. It’s not that strange, and you’ve run on less before. 

Looking at the clock also shows you that you’re only… huh. Twenty hours until Christmas. 

Twenty long hours. 

Would Dirk be at school today? Surely not. Maybe playing with the cat? Maybe not. 

Making cookies with Kanaya? 

That would be… nice.

Good for him. 

A pang of headache hits you, and you have to pinch the bridge of your nose and wait it out. 

Even then, you know that sleep isn’t going to be an option anymore. 

That pathetic four hours is probably all you’re going to get until the end of the next 24-hour cycle. Maybe you can make yourself take a sleeping pill?

Get… Vantas to tell you to take it? 

That’d be so fucking pathetic, but… whatever. 

Never mind it all. 

He’d probably refuse, anyway. 

You already pissed him off enough. 

He wouldn’t care if you slept or not, anyway. 

Bracing both hands on the edges of your tight metal-and-padding space, you pull yourself out of the bunk. You’re still sticking to your plan to observe the troll like a particularly lazy hawk, at least while he’s being more interesting than you. Well, moreso than the inside of this coffin slot. 

Half-floating into the cockpit, you come face-to-face with a rushing asteroid field, the massive rocks passing by the ship with enough berth to fit a small whale. 

Vantas sits, shoulders relaxed, neck untensed and fingers idly tapping on the steering gear. The left hand is resting on the dashboard, shifting easily between buttons. Good pilot. He sighs, and the level of his relaxation makes itself truly known to you. No wonder he’s been named the navigator. 

Hell, you came out near the top of your fucking class and he’s sitting here and idly. Idly passing through an unknown asteroid field with little to no stress. 

Either that, or he’s excellent at concealing the stress. 

It wouldn’t shock you if that were true. 

Briefly, you recall the… sleeping thing. 

The dream? 

Cuddling?

Dream cuddling, even? 

Something about it felt… real, though. It felt painfully and hopefully real. 

You don’t tend to dream with feelings. 

But. 

There’s a slow moment, wherein Vantas steers upward, and slightly to the left, and everything shifts. Inside the half-gravity of the ship, you don’t really feel it. But you see it, when the extremely large mass on your left suddenly becomes the horizon. Ship: turned. 

It makes you slightly nauseous. You should be sitting down. 

And in that slow moment, you kind of. You look at the mess of the back of Vantas’s head, and heave a great sigh within yourself, and decide to not talk about the sleeping thing. 

If it happens again? 

Certification that it was real. And then you should talk about it. Right? 

Besides, it’s not like you didn’t like it at the time. 

It’s not like you would be opposed to more of it. Immediately, maybe. 

One thing you properly remember is waking up feeling _safe._ This full, cherished and _wanted_ safety. 

God but it makes you want to just directly ask for more. 

Vantas is the cuddle drug, apparently. Maybe he’s just got a lot of practice. 

But yeah. Not gonna mention it. 

He left, he obviously didn’t want to talk about it. 

Well, to be fair, maybe he didn’t _leave_. The computer probably pinged him about encroaching danger. These fields occur naturally in unexpected places, after all. A few are formed from war.

Without speaking, you sink forward and pull yourself into your own chair. It’s technically the copilot chair, but Vantas is in the one you rode out of the station in. Like he was on takeoff, you cross your legs. But unlike he was, you rest your ankles on the dash in front of you. Blank spot, nothing important to avoid hitting with your heels. 

You cross the seatbelt straps over the sleep fatigues you still haven’t changed out of, and huff out a breath. 

Vantas tenses worse than a dog in a room that contains no less than ten uniquely agitated cats. 

“Nice piloting,” you say. 

A long gust of air leaves his lungs through the tightened corners of his mouth. You can almost see his lip split open along the middle with the force of containing it. Glancing over, you see his eyes glued painfully to the window. It’s a bit clearer after passing that one large rock. But he’s more tense. 

Is this… evidence? Of the dream’s reality, that is. 

It’s just as likely that he’s been offended by the half-assed proposition you decided to make before high-tailing it out of the danger zone. The danger zone created upon and unfortunately fueled by your own standoffishness. 

You continue to watch your copilot, thinking. 

Could you have actually imagined the velvet skin on your neck? It’s a very vivid memory of a sensation. 

Of course, you’ve also had vivid memories of getting eviscerated by a faceless attacker in a dream. And you’re still alive as far as you can see. So.

Vantas’s knuckles crack as he flexes his hands on the steerage. The asteroids passing are silent, though every other one pings the “way too fucking close” radar™, and a light dinging noise goes through the cabin. 

The emitters are soft, the refrigeration unit hums, Vantas taps his foot to an unheard rhythm. It’s nice. No flickering lights, though you would kill for a music system to break the monotony of it all. Maybe you could turn on the tv? 

But sitting and watching Vantas is so incredibly interesting. Even if he’s not really doing anything. 

The lights between the shadows of space rocks, reflecting off Vantas’s eyes from some far-off sun. His skin texture just eating up anything and everything around it that dares to shed some glow on his complexion. The way his jaw works lightly. It’s just… interesting. 

Eventually, his eyes flicker over to you. 

You realize belatedly that you’ve been staring at him in some kind of sleep-addled stupor for the better part of five minutes. Though the quiet wasn’t quite uncomfortable. 

Though when he finds your gaze, the tension in the room is palpable enough to be cut by a knife. Some kind of sharp knife. 

Paring knife, maybe.

It sounded more intelligent in your head, to be honest. All those shitty metaphors tend to. 

The computer makes some kind of… satisfied? Noise. Like a signal? And you look out the front of the ship. You’ve exited the field completely. The ship, after a code is inputted, begins to ramp the speed back up and resume course.

When you find Vantas again, he’s sitting rail-straight, once more a razor edge of tension. His fists are on his thighs, clenched. 

Coiled like a spring, or a snake. 

“I want to apologize for waking you up, and,” he begins, one of his hands flexing in what is probably a painful way on his leg. 

There’s bait here. There are two things he could be talking about, and you’re not sure which you should acknowledge first. You _do_ know that the asteroid field wasn’t in his navigation plans for the trip. So he _could_ be apologizing for that waking you up. 

For some reason, you doubt it. 

“What, with the asteroid field?” you decide to ask. And then you snort, carefully, a bark of laughter to derail any possible suspicions that you might know if he’s talking about something else. “Don’t sweat it. You can’t help that shit.”

“Not for that,” he says. It’s confirmed. There’s more bait here, with that statement. So you take it. 

“For what, then?” you ask him, not tearing your gaze away from the side of his face for a single minute. 

“For coming to your bed at night?” Vantas hazards. 

It’s dead fucking silent for about fifteen whole seconds. 

And this time, you really do laugh. 

Christ, he sounds like some kind of chaste virgin in a romance novel. And even if for that alone, you decide to let him have it easy. 

“Don’t worry about that,” you say, wiping your right hand across your eyes. 

A sigh, and then. “But I--”

“Not like I was opposed,” you interrupt. 

Panic sirens blast off in your head.

You’re not really sure what you’re doing. 

Do you want the physical affection? It sounded so good in the couple of days. It sounded so nice.

But you hadn’t thought about the vulnerability. The painful and striking vulnerability you would have to show in order to get what seemed like such a nice little passing fancy. Forget your inability to return support, it would be horrible enough to peel off all of your layers of general shittiness in order to receive it in the first place. 

Once the laughter wears off, the talk feels miles less entertaining. 

And the idea that he wants to talk about it? Instead of just pretending it didn’t happen? That makes you anxious. It makes you want to curl onto yourself and not breathe for days. It makes you not want to talk to him again. Trust issues? What? Nah. 

You hadn’t thought this far into talking about it. It must be the lack of sleep, but your expectations were way off, and now you just kind of want to get out. 

“But--”

“I made a gesture, and you took it,” you say. You very suddenly do not want to be having this conversation. 

“But--”

“Hell, what’s the issue if I can sleep better, right? Let’s leave it at that.” 

“Stri--” 

“I said that we shouldn’t talk about--”

“Oh _Fucking Hell_ , Strider, will you let me speak.” 

You’re taken aback as he raises his voice, and you have to look away from his face. 

It’s now that you realize that you’ve left your shades floating around somewhere in the bunk, and you feel bare under his scrutiny. 

Quietly, all the while cursing yourself for sounding soft and rightly intimidated, you reply with a simple “sure.” 

“I still want to apologize,” Vantas says, fiddling with something on the steerage. 

“Why?” You ask. 

And you’re met with radio silence. The hum of the equipment and the little whir of the ship reassuming autopilot assault your ears. Maybe you could just go back to bed. 

It’s so quiet for so long that you find yourself looking up, and being met with an accusing stare. Vantas is spearing you like a fish, reaming you with a look that has you straightening and sucking in a breath. Alright, fine, finish. Please. 

“Because adding… feelings suddenly into the mix of a professional relationship isn’t really done. Especially in our line of work,” he replies. 

Huh.

Feelings? 

For some reason, you hadn’t actually thought about that.

He has… feelings? About it? About you? What?

The thought makes you almost physically recoil into the dark abyss of your self worth, and you can only frown at him. Man you wish you had your shades. 

Welp. 

No, siree, no feelings for me. 

No safety, no relief, no pain at the end. 

“I literally don’t have feelings about it,” you try. 

It’s weak, you’ll admit. 

But it gets the job done. 

Vantas’s brow knits together at its apex. 

Yep. none. The warmth and sickly sweet satisfaction of having someone so intimately in your space. Definitely not having that. Attachment? Worry? Comfort? Nope. 

“Sure” he scoffs, easily. “Because it’s so avoidable to catch emotion in a vulnerable and settled situation like that.”

It takes you aback, and you stare at him a little open-mouthed. Here you are, trying to cultivate a careful facade of bullshit, and he’s just busting in with the cleaning crew at the stockyards. 

_MAN_ , why is he so fucking _comfortable_ with talking about that shit?

You’re also a little offended about him saying that you were vulnerable. Even if it’s totally true, and you have no ground to stand on with any opposition. 

“Vulnerable?” you parrot, dumbly. Still too quiet. But hey, at least your voice has now decided to carry ire.

He looks at you out of the side of his eyes, and then rolls them to the ceiling while he deconstructs the latest addition to your wall. “Yes, vulnerable. Sleep is vulnerable. Crying is vulnerable. Drop the fragile grasp on your dignity and admit to the fact that I may have, indeed, witnessed you expressing an emotion.”

You feel painfully exposed. 

The exposure wraps around your neck like a vise, shoots something violent through you in your fight or flight instinct, and you feel it take hold of your very brain and clamp down like a snake. Poison like stiff wildfire spreads its feelers like fungus in your chest and throat, in your nose and mouth. 

And when you open your lips, you spit hot vitriol. 

“I wouldn’t feel anything for you, and I’m not sure who would,” you say. And Vantas goes quiet again. The easy and knowing grin he’s been building on his face just… passes right off his mouth and falls into the abyss. 

It hits you way too late that maybe you overreacted. And when it does, you feel shame more potent than everclear.

“I wouldn’t feel anything for you, even if you sat in my lap and got me off this very fucking second. Nothing. You’re too abrasive, and nosy,” you add. 

Regret spirals through you, right alongside the sick and twisting victory of getting back at someone who has ripped off a piece of your exterior. 

And following the regret is the largest wave of self-loathing you’ve ever subjected yourself to. 

And Karkat… he makes this... face. He sucks a breath in through his nose and makes this face like he’s never smelled something worse than the words that just oozed from your ungrateful mouth. 

You’re both breathing maybe a little too heavily, stiff with upset.

It’s quiet, and painful, and then he opens the bear trap of his teeth.

“Classy, Strider,” is all he says. 

And more regret, guilt and fear pour into the tiny crinkling spaces left in the wake of the poison.

Fuck. 

His disappointment in you slaps you in the face. Just in the set of his eyes and mouth. 

And, like a champ, instead of dealing with it, you leave. 

You very deliberately unbuckle yourself from the seat. 

You move to the kitchen area to get some freeze-dried shit. 

You turn the entertainment screen to some kind of senseless serial comedy. 

Vantas doesn’t say anything else to you. 

You kind of deserve it. 

Sixteen hours until Christmas.

-

* * *

It’’s awhile that you’re awake, alone. You watch an ice planet slowly turn as you pass through its orbit. It’s almost too bright to stare at for too long, its surface riddled with reflections of its system’s star. 

The aliens you’re delivering to prefer that you not use your highest speeds while within their boundaries. They’re a small people, relatively, and mostly left alone. But they have a good amount of money and a pretty strong defensive force, so they’re left alone. 

Besides the fact that they’re the only race that will harvest most kinds of waste for their own energy or food. 

They’re weird but they have their niche and enjoy it. 

You entered their space two hours ago, inputting the right codes for permissions and regulations and so on. It’s… some amount of hours until dropoff.

-

* * *

You’re at the end of your waking shift when Vantas comes to you. 

It’s twenty minutes until he was supposed to be up, and you frown at him as he settles into the chair next to you. 

Twenty minutes until Christmas, twelve hours until drop off at the destination. 

You’re working on nothing in particular, watching a display readout numbers of security drones and codes for entrance into the upcoming sector of space. When Karkat slides his eyes over to look at you, you let your frown loosen just a bit. 

“Can I help you?” you ask. Usually, the transfer between your shifts is overseen by tacit silence, and a healthy helping of avoiding interaction. 

Interaction between sleeping shifts takes more time away from your sleep. 

At least that’s what you tell yourself. 

“I was wanting to take you up on what you said earlier,” Karkat says. “Because apparently, I can’t resist a fucking challenge from you in particular.”

And.

Oh. 

His eyes are half-lidded, brimming with molten lava, tired from lack of sleep. Furious, passionate. 

How long did he lay awake thinking about it? 

You’re painfully reminded of how you acted earlier. 

It aches, and you wince at the physical sensation of wrenching in your gut. 

Before you can agree, Vantas is sinking into your lap. 

His feet hook around the bottom of your chair. 

His body is so warm on yours.

So heavy, firm, safe. 

You remember his arms around your waist, his nose on your nape. 

Your face is hot, and you stare at his chest as he tightens his crotch to yours, slotting your hips together and fitting onto you like a puzzle piece. 

Holy _shit_ you’re not even really aroused right now. 

But he’s got you on the fast track to being there. 

Somehow, you harness the mental fortitude to wipe your mouth of any and all expression. And you look up. It’s a little pointless, knowing your face is still red. 

But it’ll make him angrier at you. 

But that’s what you want, right?

Vantas’s eyes are still hot, half with obvious frustration. 

It feels so good, so righteous, getting the anger you deserve for what you said. 

Something in you sinks like a white-hot bead of steel through styrofoam. Burns down into your core and boils something within. It’s scary, you don’t know how to feel about it. It comes with a rush that both chills and heats your chest. 

Oh but you _need_ him. 

“Call me heartless again,” Karkat murmurs, leaning forward. “You callous flake of dead skin,” 

You breathe him in silently, helplessly nod. Karkat’s fingers draw spiced lines across your shoulders as he wraps his arms around your neck. 

His lips frame yours, and there’s a beat of hesitation. “And you’ll be a worm beneath my goddamn boot,” he finishes. He doesn’t mean it, can’t bring himself to. It’s an act of passion and rectifying wrongs.

The bear trap takes hold of your mouth, then, as you gasp into him. 

Your hands are doing nothing, they want nothing to do, have nothing to do. 

Karkat kisses you for a long, sweet moment. 

It’s not like any other selfish kiss you’ve shared in the past decade. 

It’s needy, angry, hot, he tries to devour you. 

Karkat’s lips move against yours, and you desperately try to hold on as the tide takes you away. Nothing else moves; not his hips, not his thighs, just his mouth. The mouth that tastes like nectar on yours, with how you shudder a gasp. You try to keep up, you try to kiss him back with just as much passion. 

And his tongue asks for entrance at your swollen lips. You admit him readily, whining as the punch-drunk, questing tongue introduces itself to yours. He traces the roof of your mouth, the back of your teeth, huffs onto your cheek, and then. 

Karkat Vantas shoves away from you with a pop. 

A trail of saliva follows him, and he wipes it out of the air and off his chin with one swipe of a finger. 

You’re panting, trying to lean forward for more, trying to immerse yourself in him. Brow wrenched in a silent plea, grasping out. 

And Karkat slips from your arms, from your lap, leaving you there. 

Alone again, cold, craving the warmth of his presence.

The marquee of descending codes reflects off of your shades, knocked askew. 

“I…” you stutter. 

Your alarm chimes, and signals the turn of the day. 

“Go and get some rest, Strider. And Merry Christmas,” Karkat tells you over his shoulder. 

You find your head in your hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey yall, hope everyone is having a pleasant day and u enjoyed the chapter<3
> 
> things picked up for me a bit and thank u again to everyone for all the kind words and comments. i hope you all are doing well
> 
> epilogue is almost half written, and ill have some free time this weekend to accomplish a thing or two with it! hehe. i think yall are gonna like it!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“For years ive drifted_   
>  _the math of a divinity_   
>  _that goes on and on_   
>  _the math of a divinity_   
>  _it goes on and on”_

There’s not really much that’s interesting to say about the delivery.

It happens. You sit through it while Karkat Vantas uses his more commanding presence to direct the Transport Reception Slugs. There’s a convenient little spot out of the way, just aft of the stairs. 

After your little moment in the cockpit, you had edged past Vantas and into the bunk area. Not meeting his eyes, not wanting to see anything there. You didn’t sleep at all that shift, awake and plagued by memories of how good he felt on you, how wanted he made you feel. It had only been a handful of minutes, but his absence left the hollowness in your chest feeling even greater than before. 

An abscess of feeling, creeping up from the pit where your homesickness lies. Crawling forward in a symphony of self-loathing accentuated by the disappointment of your family, the distance of your friends, your inability to even have the decency to keep a romantic partner instead of a hundred short and heartless flings in your twenty-eight years of life and the _look_ , oh, the look in Karkat’s eyes. 

It’s Christmas back on Earth, and the inhabitants of this cold and barren planet have a holiday that celebrates the Day of Moist Dirt. Today is that day, fortunately. And it’s pouring. 

At least it’s not acid rain. 

They live underground when they’re not doing intergalactic waste disposal, so it really doesn’t surprise you that they have a holiday celebrating mud.

There’s an… an infant? An adolescent? (You can’t quite tell, but you think the amount of warts it has is zero, and that might be an indication of age). Undulating on your knee, one slimy appendage on your stubble. Fascinated by the prickly texture. 

You’ll need to shower after this, but the others seemed to warm up much better to Vantas once you began the impromptu babysitting session. Between you and Vantas, you have miles more experience with young ones. It works out.

It’s just sitting on its four, long legs, all of them folded together like some kind of bamboo tree. When it first crawled into your lap, it had offered you a kind of… branch? That you think may have been a toy, and was satisfied enough when you took it that you assume it isn’t food. 

Babysitting is easy. 

What’s not easy is avoiding staring at Karkat. 

His nose is wrinkled as he frowns, and fucking hell, you can’t stop thinking about how warm he is. 

Unlike you, Karkat doesn’t wear a jacket over his suit. 

This, of course, makes the lines of his suit much more… visible. And the accented maroons and blacks travel in slick lines down his form with the wet of the rain. 

It’s enough to distract you. 

It’s also enough to make you stare until you meet his eyes, and then force yourself to look away in cold and sinking shame. 

And maybe something else. 

The aliens are shifting under and across the cargo as it lowers mechanically from the bay, rolling in barrels of waste and down a chute in the ground. There’s not much above ground here. A squat building with a door, a runway, a chute, and a ramp. 

You’re not very interested in seeing their tunnels. It’s said that this species lives in very close quarters, never cleaning and almost constantly touching. 

Sounds icky. 

And man, if you’re just not into ‘icky’ if you can help it. 

The last of the barrels rolls off the bay, and they push it into the chute in the ground. 

“Thank you,” Vantas says, holding up his clunky five-inch handheld translator. It turns what he says into a series of pops and warbles, and the tallest and wartiest of the slugs makes some noises back at him. 

The rain gets stronger, and the adolescent on your lap oozes off and falls with a wet splat to the ground. It coos and makes flatulent gestures toward you, and you blow a raspberry at it before waving. 

The thing creeps along the ground toward the especially warty one, and they all seem to make some grand waving gesture before disappearing into the squat building some twenty yards away. 

Well. 

Guess that’s that. 

Vantas seems to straighten and take a deep breath before turning on you. 

He walks toward you, nearly stomps, sending flecks of mud everywhere. His boots make wide prints on the gangway. The lights of the runway and the scarce aboveground structures light his hair around his head, make him look both darker and softer for a foggy moment. 

As he passes your seat just off the ramp, he pauses. 

“Thanks for watching the kid,” he grumbles. Doesn’t look at you. “They said we could get a better price in the credits delivered to our current employer, for that. And gave us a tip.” 

And you nod, knowing he doesn’t see it. 

And he nods, knowing you see it. 

And just as he starts walking away again, less stomping this time, he glances at you. 

Even the corner of his eye is something to behold, for the bare moment you’re allowed. 

The yellow sclera, lit in the night of the planet. The bright red irises, reflecting the forward ship lights in an almost bluish way. Like a cat. Like a raccoon. You always forget how… nocturnal trolls are. 

And his mouth briefly sinks open. The intent for words is strong in the moment, and weighs heavy on your chest. His teeth are so sharp. 

But the hinge snaps closed, and the spring loads again, and his jaw returns to being painfully closed and tight before he continues into the ship. 

As he ascends, you wait and watch the downpour. It’s a very light-pinkish rain. It’s interesting. 

Vantas’s voice drifts down from the hold. 

“Come on Strider, we don’t have all day. A short delivery and we can make it home on time. The rain is going to be hell for takeoff already.” 

There are traces of ooze on the floor of the cargo hold, though thankfully most of the cargo was moved out by an automatic system. Not too much slug in the hallways of your ship makes for safer travel later, by a long shot. 

You slip yourself from your perch, and clamber up into the ship. 

Six and a half days until home. 

You’ll spend the rest of this twenty-four-hour cycle getting back into orbit, and rechecking the ship for damages and so on. It’s only five more hours, but that’s plenty. 

Six and a half days until home.

_

* * *

Three days from home, and you and Karkat seem to have shifted back into more forced camaraderie than before. 

You barely held conversation before, and the past seventy-two hours have been especially sparse. It’s like since you basically told him to fuck himself, and he retaliated, you’ve said maybe twenty words all strung together to each other. 

It’s driving you a little nuts to not be talking, but you’ve been on completely isolated space missions before. Movies and exercise go a long way to exhaustion and distraction. 

Of course, now that you’re going back and not weighed down by dangerous cargo, the ship can travel a bit faster. The route is longer, for political boundary reasons on the days requested, but the high speed thankfully shaves a good day off the trip. As planned. 

And then.

As all good things tend to do, the ‘as planned’ comes to a screeching halt. 

Literally.

Something in the outer hull begins to screech inside the cabin.

So you’re three days from home, and Karkat slows to a barely-there pulse speed, wakes you up from your medicated slumber, hands you a booster pill, and tells you to examine the hyperdrive exhaust valve on the outside of the ship. 

“I’ve heard this before,” he says, and you could cry. You definitely do not, being as tired as you are, but you could cry from how his voice and words lack the acid from the last several days. He’s being practically genial in his panic. “It’s common that they come loose, once in awhile.”

You know that this is the case. 

The thing probably wasn’t tightened completely, or you forgot to relocate the screws on those hatches while you did your inspection on-planet while you were resting on Nare-ev 8734. 

Yawning, you step out of the bunk. 

Your foot catches on the cushion, and you bump into Vantas. 

He catches you. 

A concerned look crosses his features briefly, before he takes special care to cover it up with ire. A thin veil of ire. 

“Watch yourself, Strider,” he says, and gives you a light shove toward the compression vault. 

Outside the compression vault you suit up. 

It’s definitely not as slim and streamlined as your regulation suit, but it does the job. Insulation, clean color, expert sealing and teflon and carbon fiber reinforcements. 

The thing is practically bulletproof from every angle, and nigh indestructible. 

And very expensive. 

It still smells rubbery as you slip it around your shoulders and hit the valve for sealing and cinching. The weave pulls itself together around the seam, making a similarly impenetrable sheaf. 

You yawn again, and slip on the helmet. 

Tool bag hitched to your side, tether firmly secured. Vantas double-checks it. 

The suit gives you a chill as it starts up, equipped with enough thermoregulation in its kit to best a space heater on fire in a cardboard box. 

The pointed visor also looks pretty okay, even while it pushes your face forward and cuts off a section of your peripheral vision. 

There’s a ticking noise, the thrumming of your heart. 

After the suction cuts off any and all air into your helmet that doesn’t come from an oxygen tank, you don’t hear much of anything from the ship. 

The silence is gilt and rotting. 

There’s a static noise from your in-helmet communicator, and you yawn for a third time. 

“Quit yawning, Strider,” Vantas says from somewhere. You hadn’t even noticed he’d left the compression vault. 

“Airlock one, engaged,” you say, blinking. The booster pill is finally kicking in.

The window ahead of you is both eerily dark and too bright. 

Fucking space. 

“Airlock one, opened,” Vantas murmurs, and you hear a beep. 

Walking forward, you push another button. 

Also routine. The neverending system of checks and balances for safety. 

“Final airlock, engaged,” you say. 

Moving to the side of the lock, you watch a reflection as the door behind you closes. With both hands, you grip onto the safety handles, and slot your feet into the boot-holes. The tether around your waist and braced around your body tightens, and you sigh and wait for the gust. 

“Final airlock, opened.” 

The pressure releases from the section of the ship, almost strong enough to take you away. 

It’s one of the things you have to be able to do in order to be a registered pilot. Iron grip for airlock release. 

As the air particles leave the space around you, you feel gravity leave as well. 

Everything shifts, and moves. It takes a second or two to get your grounds. 

Once you’ve got your space legs, however, you shoot a thumbs-up to the camera view that Vantas has, and you repel yourself to the outside of the ship. 

The hatch he was talking about is toward the front, on the side of the ship. A ways down from the airlock door, but perfect positioning to be easily in and out. 

Space is… quiet. 

The audio feed to the cockpit cuts out, and you’re left in oblivion. 

It’s still out here, too. And so empty. 

The seven-to-twenty-inch barrier between you and the outside lack of atmosphere can’t prepare you for actually being out there.

From inside a ship, it’s different. From inside a ship, you can still hear the light humming of fans, the pulse of your music. From inside a ship, you can’t know how truly _cold_ it is out here. 

And it _is_ cold, even through your suit. 

Your heart is steady, hands calm, you need to do your job and get back inside. 

As you move along the ship, using the convenient handholds, you have to squint against the light of the nearest system star. Looks like you forgot your shades in your bunk, again.

The swish of your breath in the respirators, the freshness of the contained oxygen, the brightness of that red giant on your visor. 

Get to the panel, undo it, and find a coupling has come loose. A common problem. So common. 

Close the panel, reattach, reinforce with new screws. Common and easy fix. The metal makes no noise in your suited fingers, something that’s always stricken you as just a little uncanny valley. Feels unreal.

There’s a quake, of the ship itself.

You look up. 

A massive hunk of frozen rock is barreling right for you.

Vantas screams in your communicator. 

The asteroid bounces silently off the reflector array on the front of the ship. 

But it’s still coming for your position. 

Desperation and shock hit you like a close-range cannon blast, and in a desperate attempt to get away, you kick off the side of the ship. One of the external engines of the ship is there, protruding, and you can make it to that with your trajectory. 

All you need to do once you have your grip is detach the tether line to remove further risk. 

But you never make it to that external engine. 

The asteroid is moving faster than you thought. 

It pushes through your tether, severing the thick fabric with its sharp and frozen husk. 

The rock pulls the line, and you’re flung in a completely different direction. 

Away from the engine.

Away from the ship.

Away from. Everything. 

Someone’s heart is beating, skipping, pounding into your skull in a loud rush in your ears. Someone’s gasping air, panting, panicked breathing making the most horrible symphony of noise. 

You’ll

You’ll die

You’ll die out here.

That sun is bright, terrifyingly bright. 

It burns your wide eyes, pushes like a knife, and your vision narrows. 

You’ll die out here. 

You’ll never get to see Dirk again. 

The ship is drifting further and further away. 

You can’t breathe. 

You have an oxygen tank, and a CO2 converter, but that will run out eventually. No food, or water, either.

You’ll never get to see Rose, or Jade, or John again. 

You can’t stop gasping in the cold, cold air. 

No, nonono. No. Please no. 

A loud sob leaves your mouth, and you think you might scream a little. 

The ship is getting farther away as your morphed trajectory takes you away. 

_“I hate you,”_ you hear. Dirk. 

He… he doesn’t know. He’s only seven years old. 

He doesn’t really know what that means, right? 

He only said it because he was mad you wouldn’t be home, right?

The phrase bounces, claustrophobic inside the helmet. 

Against the glass it shatters, in your thoughts, it’s painful and dragging like a serrated tooth against every last one of your nerves. 

Your chest seizes you. 

“Dave.”

Your _name._

What? 

“Dave, I’m coming to get you.” 

“Wha-”

You suck in a breath. 

It feels like you haven’t breathed for days, you see spots, and, and, and the ship is so. It’s so far away. 

Your face is wet and hot, you shudder another breath. 

“It’s going to be okay, Dave,” a voice says. Karkat. Gentle. He’s speaking in low tones, forced calm. 

Through the line you can hear him measuring his breathing. 

“I’ve stalled the ship and put on the wide reflectors. I’m pulling it in your trajectory. Don’t worry. I’m going to get you.” 

The ship…

You gasp again.

The spots disappear. 

The ship stopped moving away.

The audio crackles. 

It’s so far, though. 

“Hurry,” you creak at him. You barely manage speech, through your breaths. You try to slow them down. 

You can see the ship’s impulse thrusters come online again, bright yellow specks against the dark of the massive pitch planet behind the vessel. 

“Please hurry,” you try again, a little louder, a short and cracking sob. 

You can’t lose it all, you can’t. 

“Make sure to brace for impact before you hit the airlock,” he tells you. “I’ll aim it for you.” 

And just like he says. The ship tilts toward you.

There it is. That blessed open airlock. Just a dot on the side of the ship, but growing so quickly. 

The ship is nearing you as you sail away, and you almost start breathing normally again. The static surrounding Vantas’s growling voice is grounding you, keeping you here. His low tenor murmurs so wonderfully at you. 

“Do you understand, Dave? Strider? Dave, do you copy?” He asks. 

Commands. Commands are easier. Commands are easy to follow. 

“Copy,” you reply, and. Karkat. Sighs. He sighs in relief. 

And Karkat gets the ship dead on, catches you like a bug in a net. The loose tether is swinging like a rag in a breeze as it winds back into the ship, and yours gets sucked in with you as the airlock closes again. 

You brace, but nothing can quite prepare you for the shock of the impact. You just barely miss the rim of the airlock, and end up jarring your arms as you smack into the wall. The doors close behind you, and you stumble in, gripping onto rails for dear life. Karkat makes a great sound of relief in the speakers in your helmet. The ship shifts, gravity reasserting itself on your body. And stalls again. 

The last door opens, and you push against it with your hands like a tide against the land. 

When it hisses closed behind you, you collapse to your knees, and Karkat is there. 

The troll’s arms wrap around you like a lifeline, even while you’re doffing your headgear. 

“Thank everything you’re okay,” Karkat is telling you, and you’re still trying to breathe. His hands are crossing your cheeks, his nose is buried in your neck, and. He’s so _warm_. Space was so cold. 

A thrumming noise vibrates from his chest, and into you. Soft, quiet, like the purring of a cat. He’s so warm. 

“You’re okay,” he repeats, and you can only nod. 

You’re okay. You are. 

Shaken, terrified, glad to be inside. 

He holds you for a long time, there in that prep room. 

He holds you until your hands stop shaking, and your tears dry, salty, on your cheeks. 

He holds you and whispers gently to you until your whole body seems to go numb, and your cheeks sear with the heat of shame before quieting. 

He holds you until your body jolts, and you feel a wave of sick, and your arms forcibly rejects him. 

He holds you until you shakily push him away from you, and just. He doesn’t say anything. 

He stares at you as you take your space suit off and hang it up. 

The hot gaze of hurt and tired resignation burns twin holes into the back of your neck.

_

* * *

You had pushed him away. 

After all that.

And now.

Breathing hard, tired from a lack of sleep. 

Two days until home, two days. 

Your feet pound relentlessly on the treadmill. 

The maximum possible running weights you could find are strapped to your extended limbs, keeping you on the strip beneath you. Firmly planted, struck by harsh and relieving gravity. 

It’s bliss as your calves and lungs burn.

Your heart almost feels whole right now, as you break into a sweat. 

Man, you should have had more sleep. 

Stars crease the black of space as you pass them at hyperspeed, making the outside seem so much less terrifyingly still as it was when you were there. 

Music thuds an uneasy beat in your ears. 

It still won’t drown out your heartbeat. 

Still won’t drown out the gasps and the _silence._

Panting, you increase the speed on the treadmill. 

Sweat drips from your nose and chin, you feel yourself get lightheaded but you continue on, prompted by a change in song to run even faster. Faster, faster, you have to escape it. But you can’t, you can’t escape this _quiet._

From the corner of your eye, you see a sudden movement, and your head whips over, eyes wide and mouth agape, ready to shout for some reason. 

It’s only… it’s Karkat. 

No, Vantas. 

Only Vantas. 

He’s staring at you with something like worry in his very gait and manner of being. 

It pulls in your chest, and you want to go to him. 

You want to sink back into his arms, want to surrender yourself to your feelings of panic and loss and becoming detached and the _cold,_ goddammit, the _COLD_ of fucking _space._

It’s cold even as you heave, even as the computer detects a slowing of your steps and decreases the speed of the treadmill. 

It levels back out into a brisk jog, and you force yourself to look away from Vantas, stare forward and keep running. 

Ignore him, you don’t deserve him. 

You pushed him away, after eons of him holding you safe. 

You pushed him away, and he silently went. 

He didn’t say anything, and he just. He just left after you hung up the suit. 

Told you to get the rest of your sleep, and went back to piloting. 

Something changed, but like hell either of you are going to talk about it. 

You don’t need it, you don’t need _him._

The song changes again, and the off beat makes you trip on your left stride. 

The computer, detecting the trip, slows the treadmill to a stop, and you catch yourself on the support bars. 

A look at the clock indicates that you’ve been running for an hour or so. Seven and a half miles run on this dump out in space. Today and tomorrow and a few hours more and you’ll be on your way to earth, on your way back home. You want to cry for it, cry for the need to get _away_ from it. 

You take off your shirt, leaving you in your sweats and running shoes. 

After it comes off your head, you glance around, take out your earbuds, and are nearly scared to screaming by the immediate presence of your copilot. 

Still there, still standing there. In the same place, watching you. 

You list a little on your feet, and have to blink away spots. 

Maybe you should have eaten something today. Or slept. 

Vantas’s face twists, and he looks supremely dissatisfied. 

You look away, not able to stand the scrutiny.

You turn past him and go for the small kitchen counter, grabbing your designated water bottle from the refiller next to the sink. 

The water is cold, feels like hell on your raw and parched throat. 

But it wets your mouth, makes you cough, makes you feel less like an errant mess and more like a human being. 

Vantas is there again, when you glance up. 

He’s followed you over, and stands maybe three feet out from you. 

Cornering you. 

He came in with a plan. 

Is he going to force you to talk? 

“Your eyes are bloodshot,” he tells you, accusatory, and you flinch. 

Fuck, no shades.

You try to look casual, leaning back against the counter and relaxing your shoulders on an exhale. 

Your hand shakes, now, on your water bottle. 

Plan: failed. 

“What’s it to you?” you ask him, trying to muster something like a frown. 

The electrolyte-infused water they process and put into these ships makes you feel just the tiniest bit more stable as it registers into your body. 

“You’re obviously weak, I haven’t seen you eat more than a protein bar for thirty-six hours,” he growls. 

“It doesn’t matter, I’m fine,” you try, and the frown strengthens just a bit on your brow. 

Vantas scowls, outright. The fire in his eyes burns you, burns your face and whips across your neck like you might need a scarf. 

“That’s another thing, Strider. You’re not fine. My guess is that you’re suffering from trauma. Which is understandable, and normally I wouldn’t bother, but we’re on this mission together.”

“What, you think I’m gonna _talk_ to you about it?” You ask him. Try to quirk a brow, fail. 

You suddenly remember the shaky breaths, the cold air in and out of your lungs, the overwhelming vastness, emptiness, age of the space outside the ship.

It’s like someone put a block of dry ice in a vat of boiling grease. 

Vantas barrels on. “Well that would be preferable.”

He inches closer to you, leaning down and. Oh. 

You hadn’t even realized your gaze has shifted to the floor. He leans down a bit more, catches your eye again. 

Ah Christ, no shades. No shades, why? Why did you forget them again? They’re not good for exercise but you left yourself, you left yourself vulnerable. 

“What do I have to do to get you to settle on this experience you had? Because it’s not like you were alright before, but something happened out there,” he says, and he’s the one shaking, now. 

Vantas lowers his voice, softens. 

“Why won’t you accept my comfort?” he asks. 

Because you don’t deserve it. 

But hey. 

If he wants to know what he can do to help?

“I could use a distraction,” you blurt, and. “Of the carnal type. If you’re up for it.”

It’s too late to take it back. 

Yes, you’re interested, you’re fully interested, the activity will surely take your mind off the anxiety and the thoughts. And Vantas, he’s so warm. You can’t give him what he wants emotionally, but he’s so warm. 

His gaze is shocked, a little angry, surprised. He doesn’t know what to think, but realization dawns on his face from top to bottom. 

He’s so. He would be so _warm_. You remember his arms around you, and the lips on yours, and his thighs bracing just so, and the coldness of the departure from everything you know and love. Untethered, detached, panicking, and--

Karkat is so soft under your mouth. 

Fleeting and sweet, he takes hold of what you’re giving, grips your ribs and--

You’re stumbling across the room as he turns you and shoves. 

You trip clumsily over your weak and sore feet until you land on the sofa, still grounded by those weights. 

And Vantas, panting, swipes the back of his hand across his mouth, and stops to stare at you. 

He doesn’t say anything. 

But what he does do is look you up and down, very obviously considering you. It’s impossible to tell if it’s positive or revolted consideration. 

The ache of rejection stings you and makes a hollow in your chest to sit comfortably inside. You’re about to call it off, walk away and take a sleeping pill and just ignore him for the remainder of the trip. 

You know by your mental calculations that you have at least another two hours before the next change in navigations, so he’s not thinking about that. 

Eyes fiery in the darkness of his carapace, almost enough to distract you from everything else. 

And he comes to a conclusion, staring at you sprawled on that couch. 

“Okay,” he mutters, removing the boots from his feet. 

And he’s sitting across your lap before you can even utter a single noise that properly signals your surprise. 

His mouth is so hot on yours, his hands blessedly warm on your chest. Yellow claws digging into the sensitive flesh at your collarbone, teeth nipping your lower lip and dragging it out and, oh. This is just what you needed.

The almost wooly texture of his hair grazes your forehead as Karkat tilts his chin and slots your mouths together as if he has decades of previous practice breaking you down into your smallest and most pathetic pieces. 

You being the one more weighed down, his feet scrunch under your thighs to hold himself to you. 

And the way he kisses. 

It’s as close to flying as you can get without jumping off of something.

It’s full of vigor, and passion, and stolid resolve. His tongue delves into your mouth to pry apart your teeth and carve into your stiff exterior like it’s just that _easy_. 

Again, you’re struggling to keep up. 

It’s like trying to maintain speed with a hyperjet on foot. 

His jetstream tries to fling you, his hands hold you there, his angry huffs of breath on your cheek make you want to try even harder. 

So you do. 

You push back up against him, rolling your hips and shoving your own tongue into his mouth. 

You can almost feel it nick on his teeth, which turn out to be less sharp than they previously seemed. 

Karkat hums against you.

It’s a low note that chirps on the cusp, and you can’t tell if that was his artificial voice box or not. 

But it thrums against your skin, into your chest, at the brink of being just a little too close to the hum of the oxygen tank in your airlock suit. 

It jerks you out again, alerts you to the scowl on Karkat’s brow. 

Blessedly, thankfully, he allows you a moment of air. 

Velveteen palms run up and down your chest, caressing every line and curve of muscle and skin. They run over your nipples, and draw out an excited gasp. They pass over and under your armpits and down your ribs. It’s hard to avoid shivering at the contrast of the cool cabin air to the heat of his touch. 

A moment of this, just this silent admiration of your form, and your eyes drift closed. 

The steady push and pull of his hands, the quiet undulation of his thighs on your lap, and. 

Teeth, on your neck. 

They’re followed too quickly by a hot tongue, and claws that scratch white lines down your sides and back. 

A soft whine comes from somewhere within you, and he echoes it with a noise of his own. 

Karkat makes quick work of you, mouth latched onto the front of your tipped throat. He works on a spot right under your jaw, biting and sucking and God, it’s so wonderfully distracting. 

The sound of a zipper coming undone sounds from before you, and your eyes are still closed when fingers jerk your chin back down. 

Something too soft to be imaginable presses to your chest. It takes you a second to realize it’s the whole sheaf of skin on the front of Karkat’s torso, warm and just barely fuzzy and oh, oh, when he finds your mouth again, pressing as closely as possible, it rubs against you. 

The sensation of it is almost too much, almost overwhelming as it stimulates the more sensitive skin on your belly and you wonder briefly when he had time to remove the sleeves as well, as the entire surface of his arms seems to drag so wonderfully against the skin of your neck. 

It’s getting good, you’re ferociously pushing down the part of your brain that’s screaming about a bad idea, like always.

But then. 

Something happens. 

Something, something happens. 

And Karkat’s kisses change to something else. They soften, there’s less teeth, he slows down. 

His body fits itself so closely to yours, and you want to gain something from it, you want the raw and useless satisfaction. You want to give him something worth giving, give him what you want and get rid of your own loneliness. 

And you try, you try. 

You bite his tongue, and he hums reprimand at you. 

You bite his lip, then, maybe too harshly, hoping for the retaliation, and he growls. But he doesn’t act back, doesn’t bite you back, just keeps. Getting gentler. 

Your grip on his thighs grows harsh, your fingers dig almost cruelly into the flesh there and he says nothing. 

The kisses grow languid, the touch of his claws nonexistent, the fire in his eyes is burned out. 

Suddenly incapable of words, you whine at him, into his mouth that’s too soft on yours. 

And he draws back, pecks the corner of your lips.

No. 

No, no, it’s too much. 

It’s too calm, too gentle. 

You don’t need it or deserve it. 

Trying to instigate something again, you grab his hips, force his body down into yours. 

Karkat just huffs and continues what he’s doing. 

Saccharine kisses litter down your cheeks from your mouth, tracing a heated line down the edge of your jaw. 

It makes you angry, frustrated. 

A part of you almost lashes out with how quickly you lean back and try to recapture his mouth. 

And Karkat isn’t having it. 

One of his arms retracts from around your neck, and you curse as he holds your chin away from his face. 

You can’t do anything about it, you’re almost frozen. 

It’s too.

It’s too soft, it’s an outrage. It’s like he came in with the plan to do this, to placate you, and it’s not what you want, not what you need. Right? 

You were just fine with the previous plan, just fine with the plan that involved you both getting something out of this. 

But as he holds you still, unmoving except for his very slow and gentle mouthing of your shoulder, you can’t quite handle it. Because you don’t _deserve_ any of this. 

And something inside you cracks through the middle. 

Your body relaxes muscles you didn’t even know you had, and then they all seize up at once. 

Karkat’s mouth hums on your skin, and his kisses start travelling north again. 

“Why?” you ask, weakly, and. 

For the first time, you realize you’re crying again. 

Your face is hot and wet, your eyes feel numb, and Karkat just hums his reply. 

“I…” 

Karkat murmurs what is most likely something in Alternian against your neck, and his fingertips begin to trace slow circles on your hips. 

“Why can’t I…” 

It’s so. 

Every muscle in your body is tensed, ready to flee. But you don’t want to, you don’t want to leave.

Right here is the safest you’ve felt in years. 

He’s got you pinned to the sofa and you’ve never felt this secure. 

It makes that crack in the middle a little wider, and you gasp a sob. 

Holy shit, are you losing it?

Are you losing it in front of some practical stranger out on a transport mission? 

The sound of his voice, barely murmuring nonsense, flattens your creases and reminds you of the sound of his soothing. When you thought you were lost, he grounded you. 

Karkat kisses your lips again, and it’s the slowest it’s ever been. 

Dragging skin against black skin, a sigh and an utterance of comfort. 

“I… can’t,” you whisper, and he nods. 

“Can’t what?” he asks, his first words in a long time. 

“I don’t know,” you say to him.

Karkat withdraws from you, and you immediately want him back. 

You want his warmth to shield you forever, to keep you warm until you feel safe to go outside again. 

He nods, touching his fingers to your chin, running them in a line down the front of your throat. 

“I’m not worth this-- whatever you’re doing,” you say, and you’re too tired to be struck by the poignancy of your own honesty right now. 

“Yes you are,” he says, and another sob shocks its way from your lips. 

Well, okay, if he wants to believe that. 

“I know you’re not okay, Dave,” he tells you, and you open your eyes. 

He’s looking at you with so much… care. It makes you want to cry again. 

“Bullshit,” you attempt, and he scowls again. He’s definitely not amused by your rejection of his truth. 

“We both know what happened out there, and you’re not okay,” he repeats. 

It’s all you can do not to nod. Not to agree with him, and admit defeat for your denial. 

You don’t say anything else, because you can’t. 

But your chest seizes up, and you take in such a sudden breath it hurts. 

Karkat undoes the weights on your wrists, one after the other. 

They thud to the floor behind him, just so slightly magnetized. 

It’s this action alone that makes you lean forward and plant your face in his chest. 

Heavy as lead, you let your neck loll as you wrap your fully freed arms about Karkat’s waist, and let your tears soak his shoulder. 

He rubs a hand up and down your spine, tracing the knobs of bone. 

“You’re safe now,” he murmurs into your hair. 

And for some embarrassing reason, that’s all you need before you’re full-on bawling like a complete embarrassment into his shoulder. 

A loud cry works itself up from you as you recall the terror of becoming detached. It carries wetly into your tears, and you shake against the troll in your arms as he very warmly fits himself back to you. The cry turns into something wretched and twisted when you imagine leaving everyone you know, never getting to see Dirk again. 

The cry twists into agony as you remember Dirk’s “I hate you”. 

And Karkat holds you through it, making strange, long chirring noises from somewhere in his chest. 

He holds you as the tears escalate to a hoarse shout, and he holds you even as they completely go away. 

It must be half an hour that you’re sitting there, getting his shoulder dirty, and he keeps you through it. 

And when the tears are gone, and your shakes subside, he kisses you again. 

It’s soft, conciliatory. 

And it feels so different. 

Instead of his tide taking you away, he gives you a boat upon which to drift along. 

You make a quiet noise into the space between his breaths, and he makes one right back at you. 

There’s… something there. In the way he clings to you, draping himself across your lap and shoulder. In the way he gently buzzes on you. 

It makes you feel… something. 

That something sticks to your insides like honey. 

It coats your viscera and drips its way into your heart and you just…

You feel so good. So satisfied. 

This time, it feels like he needs you, too. Instead of you needing him. 

This time, when you kiss back, you’re starting a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! second to last chapter here, and then the epilogue for number 7! hope yall are having a great week, and things are working out really well! love yall <3
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT::: that bit where dave's tether snapped is what i wrote the entire fic for! and the scene was so FUN to write haha


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“And i wonder_   
>  _where have you gone?_   
>  _and i wonder_   
>  _what have you done?_   
>  _what have you done?”_

There’s a key in your hand, warm and reeking of happiness. 

The train wobbles around you. 

It’s warmly lit with evening light. 

There are very few passengers, but they all seem to be relaxing in one way or another.

The car in front of yours moves almost separately, like trains in those old movies do. It’s disorienting for a minute, and you stare at it until the compartment door closes.

Hours pass there on that train.

You shake the fuzz from your eyes. 

Karkat is next to you.

Or at least you get that feeling.

His trunk is open, and you peek inside.

It’s full of jewels and comfort food, and soft pillows and cozy blankets. 

There’s a time-worn, dark-rust-colored hoodie in there that you slip on over your head. 

Karkat’s shoulder is firm under your ear, but soft like his skin.

Three country miles of turtleneck sweater cover his shoulders and torso. 

The thumb of his right hand draws some unrecognizable pattern on your knee. The claw is strangely colored. The different shades ooze into each other like an opal turning in the light.

 _“Sleep well_____?”_ he asks. 

You can hear the tender smile on his mouth.

It sounds not like words, but closer to birdsong. And a hug. And the heat of the oven on your face as you open it to retrieve a pan of cupcakes.

Unable to say a word, or really move, you nod. 

It’s not uncomfortable, its. 

Peaceful. 

Everything has a diffuse glow around it.

Gentle sigh against your forehead. 

A kiss. 

Purring. 

More soft words you can’t really hear. 

It doesn’t matter. 

You fall asleep on that train, suffused with contentment. 

When you come back, Karkat is gone. 

The seat back beside you is still warm; he _can’t_ have been away long. 

But his luggage is there, and his ticket is not in sight.

He got off the train? 

The key to the trunk pulses, friendly, in your hand.

_

_

* * *

You wake curled in Karkat’s arms, lounging between his legs and clinging to his reclined form.

“Mmf,” you croak against his chest, and dare a glance up.

Will he still be there? Will he still want you? 

The question is answered when he looks down from his book, smiles, and smoothes a kiss across your forehead. 

Murmurs some kind of a lullaby against your skin. It puts a gentles shiver through you, his soft lips sending tingles down to the base of your spine. 

It occurs to you to stretch. It’s like unkinking a hose. Half your joints pop, and the ache is a pleasant one. 

Sore, tired, but relaxed with him. 

A tooth catches on your hair, and Karkat splutters. 

You definitely don’t let out this drowsy and embarrassing giggle. Definitely not one that your half asleep brain should have reminded you would be horribly humiliating to remember once you’re fully awake. 

“Three hours before we have to begin landing procedures,” Karkat hums against your hairline. 

You grumble at him, whining pitifully in yet another embarrassing display.

Neither of you are thinking of the fact that the three hours are a deadline. 

Right now, it’s what you can fit into those hours that you’re thinking of. Not what you’ll do once you have to separate. Once you have to face the outside world. Once your bubble of safety is broken. 

He chuckles fondly, and scratches his dull claws up your bare nape, into your hair. 

He’s so good. So good for you, so whole and solid and good. 

“Okay, okay. You can sleep a bit longer.”

His voice sends pleasant tremors down your spine. Karkat traces a circle around your hipbone. It tingles warmly.

“Th’nk you,” you slur, and nuzzle into the softness at his sternum.

_

_

* * *

Before you know it, your time is up.

_

_

* * *

_The return._

 

It’s hard not to notice the moment when you cross from the gangway into the terminal. 

The texture of the sound changes, the hollowness of the floor turns into tiled solidity, and your boot-steps cease to echo. And the smell of it, the sterile but somehow still moldy air.

Back on SKAIA. 

After staring at each other blankly for a good ten minutes, a silent agreement had been reached. 

Karkat had given you a curt wave, and headed down a different hallway than the one you did.

Hands in your pockets, bag slung over your shoulder. 

Just need to pack up your scattered things, pack them into your trunk, and move your life to the other side of the galaxy again. A cluttered place in you stretches comfortably at the thought of getting back to Earth. 

_bang, bangbang, bang bang bangbang_

There’s some kind of commotion, like someone slapping a wall repeatedly. 

When you look up, to see what it is, you--

_Dirk._

Your little brother is waiting there, nose smashed up against a pane of glass. 

He’s holding a stupidly large candy cane that has your name on it. And. 

He’s smiling at you.

Rose and Kanaya stand behind him much more sedately as the kid waves, with his whole body. 

Something warm and familiar clasps your shoulder as you gasp, heat coming to your eyes and- 

You run, ignoring whatever it was.

It makes a winded sound behind you.

You might be crying or something but they’re. 

Here. 

They’re here, and _safe_ , and you’re seeing them. 

You almost trip as you crash into someone, and hook a sharp right around the automatic doors. 

Dirk runs the remaining distance to you as you round the corner.

As he gets to you, you sink onto your knees, dropping your luggage. 

Your baby brother’s arms are so small. 

“Dave!” Dirk says, happily, and you sniffle maybe just a little before nodding into his shoulder. Dirk shouts, exasperated, as your stubble scrapes his cheek, and tries to shove you away amidst bubbling laughs. 

His shoves eventually work, and you pry yourself from him more reluctantly than you’d like to admit.

Dirk is wearing some pointy sunglasses you swear were yours when you were little. Did he unearth them from your old shit? 

“What’s with the shades, my dude?” you ask, holding him at arm's length. Just so you can get a good look. The giant candy cane falls between you as Dirk rocks it restlessly in his hands.

“He desired an appearance much closer to your own, I assume as a form of flattery or pride, perhaps aspiration,” a smoothly clicking voice comes from somewhere to your left. 

Kanaya stands there, softly smiling. She’s got a very carefully placed arm around Rose, who’s also grinning at you. 

Rose’s grin is a little less benign, but you find yourself returning it all the same. 

You remember her message. The one from the trip. The most heartfelt she’s been with you in some time. 

“Merry Christmas, Dave. And a Happy New Year,” she says, softly.

Her smile softens for a second or ten, melting into something very present and real. It warms, casting an unfamiliar brightness over parts of her face. 

You see it there. There’s forgiveness you’ve been wanting, an apology for her petty actions, a welcome. She knows you’re planning on staying on Earth after this. 

You raise an eyebrow in question, and she nods before letting the smile fade. 

It’s impossible to not want to stand and embrace her, but Dirk is still in your arms. 

You clutch him tight to you, until he starts complaining again, and then you loosen. 

He hugs you back when he’s able. 

_He hugs you back._

“Dave, bro, Dave. Did you see the candy cane? I got it for you,” he chatters.

Tears nearly spring anew to your eyes, but you suck them back, sniffles and all, and just, breathe him in. 

“I got it special and kept it for a whole week and a half!”

Your flesh and blood, real and here, little brother. He smells like the flight and his shitty kids’ bar soap he prefers and clean laundry.

It’s almost too good to be true. 

But true to form, he keeps talking about his (your) candy cane, and how Kanaya let him pay for it, and how it was really heavy and he had to leave his favorite homework project at home to make the weight limit for interstellar luggage. His grip in your jacket keeps you grounded.

He’s not usually this chatty out loud, but his small voice is soothing you more than he could ever know.

On your sight’s path upwards between your sister and -in-law, across the room, you see him. 

Karkat. In plainclothes. 

Did he change just after landing? 

You yourself are still in uniform, and you were going to change when you got to your room. 

His high collar hides the vicious bite mark you left on his neck.

As if he can sense your eyes on him, he looks over. 

Karkat Vantas, navigator, meets your gaze.

It’s a stark stare, with so many words pushing out at you from behind his eyes.

You didn’t talk about… anything. 

You just parted once landed, and. 

Strangely, it aches. 

His eternal scarlet holds you still. 

It holds you for so long, boring into your eyes, and heat flames up into your chest. 

But every spell must be broken eventually. 

Someone comes along and claps Karkat on the shoulder. It’s some scrawny piece of shit with an ancient Philosophy of Programming book falling out of his bag and a cloud of bees hovering around something in his pocket. 

Karkat breaks the stare first. 

It’s a clean break, like a bowl fallen onto the floor bisecting itself neatly in half. 

On the other end, you have to scramble not to feel something inside you shatter. Cover it with bandages, tape it, seal it up. 

With that stare off you, you feel it. 

This is different than the past. All the others just to get your fix, to quell the boredom, to put another worn and shitty band-aid over your loneliness. 

Also different from the past, is the feeling that there won’t be any more after this. 

“Hey bro. Kanaya said ice cream before we go back home. We can get ice cream, right? And then go home, right?” Dirk’s voice chimes, as he squirms out of your arms. 

You look back at him, and you feel your whole body relax. 

It’s okay. The fix is gone, you don’t need… it. 

All you need is this. 

You won’t be lonely. 

“Yeah sure. You wanna see my room here before we get ice cream?” you ask him, and push his shades up onto his head, to see his bright golden eyes. 

“Yeah! That sounds so awesome!” he replies, and if he was a less sedate kid, you would think he was about to leap into the air. 

God, he’s easy to please for a seven-year-old. 

“Come on, we can use the transportalizers,” you tell him. 

Dirk whoops, you stand and sling your bag back over your shoulder, and. 

He holds your hand. 

Oh.

Well, that’s new. 

Isn’t he a bit old for that? 

But he grips your fingers like a lifeline, and you feel yourself rooted in him. 

He can’t possibly know how you’re feeling. Is he holding your hand just because he wants to, then?

Warmth strikes your heart. 

That key from the dream almost feels real in your grip, again.

 _Thanks, kid._

Dirk leads the way, following the signs to the Transportalize! pad down the hall. This time, you’re not in a rush to make a flight, so you let yourself walk slowly to match Dirk’s strides. 

His small feet smack the floor next to you, setting up a satisfying rhythm that you follow with your heart. He’s got new shoes, how much did his feet grow?

“Quite an impressive necklace you’ve acquired,” Rose says. 

You squawk a little, and can almost see your own face redden.

For the mark you’d left on Karkat, he’d given you ten. 

You’d forgotten about them, and you pull up the corner of your suit’s collar where it’s sagged. 

Rose is suspiciously quiet after that. 

She knows about your habits, knows about your… well, she called it an addiction once. You didn’t take too kindly to that. 

“Of course, you’ll never see them again,” she adds. 

And it hurts. 

A pang shoots from your eyes to the back of your head, and you feel a frown draw your brow. 

“No, I won’t,” you confirm. 

And it’s the truth. 

No matter how much…

“I’m… better, now,” you murmur. 

He felt so _good_ for you, so whole. 

His body wrapped around yours like you understood each other.

Made you feel like you could be an entire person, again.

But people don’t complete people. 

He’s across the room, you could get his communication routing number, get him to add you on the Interspacial Friends Network, get his messaging handle. 

But you don’t. 

He wouldn’t need you, anyway. 

You don’t turn around. 

You don’t get his contact information. 

You let him fade. 

Dirk squeezes your hand, and you wrestle your face into a small grin, for him. 

“So, how’s school? Build me anything cool?”

Dirk laughs his little embarrassed laugh. 

“Yeah Dave, _all_ my robots are for you.”

You laugh, too, and give the top of his head a hard noogie. 

“Punk,” you say. “Now remember, my room is on the--”

“Third ring,” Dirk finishes.

Man, this kid’s memory. 

“Yeah. Good job, kid.” 

It’s time to leave that ship behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! hope everyone is having a great week before the holiday! 
> 
> sorry that this is the last official chapter, but i do have a PRETTY long (so far) epilogue im hammering out just in time for christmas! so ill be darned if its not in time for yall! 
> 
> <3 hope you enjoyed the chapter


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lot of the sollux ideation came from a convo with my good friend Dusty! Hope yall enjoy! It's a bit long!
> 
> thanks again to everyone who helped beta this thing, and gave me advice despite it not being a hot button idea at the time! thank yall so much hahaha.

The tram rolls smoothly through the relatively small city, running slowly in the current residential area. A group of aliens in veils, making gentle brook-burbling noises, chatter in the corner. It breaks the silence so nicely. Even if it does feel like they’re talking shit.

It was a dangerous fucking gamble, assuming He had a heart just because he was capable of being hurt. 

You've been searching in your spare time away from work. It's a difficult task to accomplish, this wild goose chase of no real probable worth. But something in you yearns for it, _needs_ the prize you seek so badly.

A section of mass-fabricated hives passes on the right. Weather-proofing, two floors with metal shutters, water tanks, reinforced electromagnetic doors and struts. Typical of this area? Probably. Even if the dust storms stopped more than forty years ago, discretion is the better part of valor when it comes to reliability and strength. 

“So you should be coming up on your stop in three clicks. Make sure to keep your eye out for it. This backwoods public transport is anything if not unreliable.”

Half of Sollux’s words get trapped in his nose as he gives you the most nasally monotone known to man and troll kind.

“It’s just a small town, not the boonies craters of Mars.”

“I rest my case,” Sollux concludes, satisfied, and the instant transmission line crackles.

Outside the tram, a park passes. It’s a fairly expansive park, littered with goers and their families and pets. A few lusii are there, watching young trolls squabble amongst themselves. 

One of them, a lusus shaped like a great hound, seems to be herding a few wrigglers together, gesturing for them to climb onto its back. 

The hound lusus shakes, moves, and. 

What was that? 

It almost looked like--

You jump to your feet as the tram slows further.

Your hand slams onto a grip rail overhead, and you hold yourself as the car comes to a stop.

“Wait," Sollux’s raspy tones come through the communicator on your wristwatch, "What are you doing, KK?" 

“I saw something in that park,” you tell him, and you’re on the platform before he can string three words together. 

“Is this because all I found earlier was an empty lot?!” he growls, tinny, as you make your way to a street. It’s in the middle of the town, not quite residential. You try to get your bearings. 

“An empty lot in the _city_ , KK, and you show your gratitude by ignoring me and going off the trail I found.” 

You look left, and right. Try to position yourself with the train and triangulate. It should be… to your left, right? 

"I get no thanks around here. An empty fucking lot. Half a day of searching and datamining and I get an empty _fucking_ lot.”

You start to walk in that direction, hoping for the best. The tram was moving fast, how do you know it’s not five miles away? 

“Oh and look. Judging by your moving position, you’re running out of the station now. Perfect.” 

You wish you’d gotten that sandwich for lunch before getting on the tram. The ride was longer than you expected. 

“Did you see your hobo boyfriend hanging out under a bridge or something?” 

That gives you pause. 

“I told you he wasn’t a hobo, Sollux,” you scold him. “For the last time, I am abso-fucking-lutely and grubfistingly sure he wasn’t a hobo.” 

“Well yeah, but he lived in an _empty fucking lot_ , apparently!”

You sigh, and keep walking. 

What Sollux is choosing to blissfully forget is the fact that there _had_ been an apartment building there, apparently, demolished in the last ten years. Regardless of the fact that it was a scapegoat.

“I can only do so much from here on SKAIA station, do you know how much this is costing?! Well, nothing to me, but that’s beside the point! If you had just followed the lead we had on his sister, maybe we would get somewhere!”

Sollux’s rasped and lisping rant grates on your ears, and you say something just to shut him up. 

“Tell me how to get to that park I just passed,” you tell him. 

He heaves a positively massive sigh, and you stop moving so that he can get a better lock on your position. “Yeah, I know, no _hobo_ would be employed by SKAIA and then just disappear off the interspace net more than ten months ago.” 

“Thanks, asshole,” you tell him, and he sighs again. 

You hear some kind of confirmation buzz from one of his organic servers, and he sighs again. 

“I hope this is worth it,” he says, and you can hear the buzzing escalate slightly in the background as he activates the mapping function to properly trace you. It comes through as gibberish and crackling, thrumming and organic enough to tell that it's his system. “Keep going straight, and take a left in six blocks.” 

“Thank you,” you say, almost sincere. “Shitsponge.”

His tone is a dry monotone when he replies. 

“Oh be still my beating heart. It suits such an insufferable dung heap to fall for the only hobo without a legal or government record for the last 11 years of his life in the 23rd century. Congrats.”

You snort, ignoring him. 

The next three and a half miles are spent with him griping in your ear amidst directions, talking about what an immature job they did shredding the online files and personal records, and how it’s all probably a red herring for some kind of strung-out trafficking ring. 

He’s talking about not how he could have done it better this time, but about how easily he could probably ping it all together, when you sight the park. 

The miles go quicker than you thought, halfway through Sollux trying to convince you to commandeer an abandoned hoverbike. 

All it would take was a touch, but. 

When you see him, you want to be on your feet for it. 

And. 

You round the park’s titular sign, and...

There he is. 

It’s painfully anticlimactic, seeing the back of that head of curly blonde. 

It is.

It’s him. It’s really him.

You wince, and stare at your dark hands for a minute, wondering if this was really the right choice. 

Somehow it was all numb until now. Not thinking about what would happen if it all went horribly wrong, and he just... told you to go.

The hound lusus is now gone, with his several wriggler charges. There’s still a tree-sloth and cyclops, their hulking pale forms gesturing slowly to each other. It reminds you of Sollux’s biclops lusus, and your own, conversing with reluctant agreement and bonding over what a hassle you both were.

It was so long ago. 

And you and Sollux spent most of your time inside as scared little lowbloods, instead of outside, like the two (probably four-sweep-old? five?) trolls that are chasing a short human around the floating jungle gym. The short human is wearing the stupidest sunglasses you’ve ever seen, and you recognize them from when Dave ran from your touch, back in that terminal on SKAIA. IT aches to think of it.

But he ran, and you were helpless to do a single thing about it. 

He ran toward this human child, wearing those same pointed pieces of eyewear. 

The child is very slightly older, now, has a tank top on instead of a hoodie. It’s getting chilly out with the decline of the day, so you’re wondering how the human isn’t freezing his little arms off. But it’s obviously the same one. His hair is just as pale as Dave’s, if not tinted a little toward… brown? Red? Something.

Orange?

Human physiology is so strange. 

“Hey Surfyr! No teeth! Human, remember?” A deep voice hollers from in front of you. 

Like you've been dunked in icy water, you remember the thing you came here for. 

You almost sprain your neck with how quickly you glance back toward the source of the voice. 

And it is. It’s Dave, on that bench. 

You transfer Sollux to earpiece-only. 

Dave waves a broad arm, and one of the troll kids waves back with a bit of a frown. Her teeth are sharp, and she snaps them at Dave, purple tongue flashing at him. 

You walk forward, and her eyes glue to you before going wide, and then away almost as quickly as they came. She goes back to playing, not opening her mouth again except to talk as long as you're watching. 

“Came here to play catch, did you?” Sollux’s voice rings out from the communicator, and you jump violently. 

You almost forgot he was there. 

“No,” you say, and don’t offer any more information. 

“Well then what the fuck are you doing? We were following the sister’s trail, and you left, but managed to get halfway to her place with this shitty little stunt! Congratulations! Now keep moving!”

You ignore him, dutifully. As his friend. 

And he keeps griping. 

In seconds, you’re halfway to the bench, arm outstretched, and Sollux is halfway to certifiably insane with his blather about you going in the wrong direction. His voice is extra tinny in your earpiece as your breathing speeds with anticipation. 

It’s Dave. 

A corona lights around his head with the fading afternoon behind him. 

You’ll go up to him, sweep him into your arms, and he’s so. So close. 

“After all I do for you people, you ignore me like I’m last night’s stale grubloaf. Unbelievable. Worse than the interns,” Sollux is grumbling. 

His voice has all but faded from your attention, his ire a blip on the radar. 

Dave resettles on the bench, shifting from side to side and slipping his coat closed in the front. Well, either that, or he’s scratching his crotch very obviously. Which you honestly wouldn’t put past him to do in public. You’re hoping for the former. 

“Hey, punk, let’s go home! Rose has dinner for us! Mac 'n cheese,” Dave shouts, and the human child perks up. As he loses attention for his friends, the human kid gets bowled over into the wood chips, face first. Dave hisses, hand covering his mouth. 

The kid stands up, laughing.

And then Dave is. 

He’s getting to his feet.

All of your preconceived notions about how this is supposed to go just fly out the window. 

Fuck.

The moment you’ve been waiting for happens too quickly to be anything. He catches a glimpse of you out of the corner of his eye, and then rounds fully, staggering. 

Dave almost trips over the curb of the playground as he steps back, shades sliding down his nose and revealing the most lovely set of tell-tale red eyes. Eyes you missed so much. 

“And you’re probably not even going to _find_ him without my help, so I’m not sure why you’re even bothering with this little detour to smell the fuckin’ earth daisies, KK,” Sollux comes back in, a harsh contrast to the relief and warmth of compassion blooming in your chest. 

Dave looks like he’s seen a ghost. 

His eyes are wide, disbelieving, his face washing pale before turning the barest and softest shade of velvet pink imaginable. 

“You--” he near-shouts at you, and freezes completely. “Karkat?!” 

His name comes out of your lips, clumsy and unpracticed. It wobbles on the rails in a too-familiar squeak, seeing as you _still_ haven’t gotten your voice implant fixed. 

You don’t know what to say to him. 

“Dave,” you say. 

He laughs, once, almost hysterical. 

It reminds you of one of your favorite sounds from that last clump of hours on the ship, when he’d been waist-deep in your legs, rooted in you. A patchy little giggle, sweet and doubtful and high. A twitch, a flex. Teeth clamped into your neck, hard. He got fucking payback for that one later.

“Wait just a goddamn parsec, who was that? Someone shouted your name, who the fuck was that?” Sollux lisps into your ear, and you reach up toward the mute button. 

“I found him,” you breathe, and Sollux barely has the chance to screech anything at you before you cut the communication with him. 

“Who…?” Dave says, still a little out of breath but softer this time. 

And oh shit, his face is so much more open than the first time you met. 

“An asshat,” you reply before Dave can finish. 

And God, he’s right here. 

He’s straightened and squared up against you by now, and you look him over. 

Try to get a clue as to who he’s become. 

Jacket is what you notice first. Emblazoned with the crest of Crockercorp over his arm, white button-down and slacks and… tennis shoes? He must have come to the park straight from work.

“You’re not a pilot anymore?” you ask, curious.

Dave makes a face. Some kind of shitty face. 

A burst of words bites out from his mouth. 

“Personal pilot,” he tells you, and. 

Well, that explains it. 

The wave of incredulity turns into a trickle of sobriety.

He got a really good job, then. With what credentials? 

You remember Sollux telling you that Dave’s record was buried fuck deep in a mountain of shit. And that most of it seemed to have been wiped or splintered. For a week or two before Sollux had gotten back to you again, you remember thinking that maybe Dave wasn’t even real. Or that he’d been a forged identity somehow. 

Maybe it was… Crockercorp that wiped it? But why? 

Personal pilot, personal pilot, the insignia and the… 

Is he an escort for the CEO himself? Holy shit. How the fuck did he land _that_ job. 

It strikes you about two minutes into your silent perusal of his physical appearance that Dave’s job isn’t really important right now. When your eyes re-find his face, he’s looking a little offended and a little flattered. Still surprised, though. Still very shocked. 

“You found me,” he near-whispers. 

You don’t get a chance to be any more ass-breakingly awkward before a much younger voice chimes in from the ground. 

“Surfyr and Kraken are going to their hives, who is this?” 

Both you and Dave unglue your eyes from each other and look down. 

It’s the child from earlier. 

“Uh,” Dave laughs, and you watch him straighten his shirt and rub the back of his neck. 

“This is Karkat. Karkat, Dirk,” he gestures between you, “Dirk, Karkat.” 

“Hi Karkat,” Dirk says, very frankly. “You’re grey as fuck.”

You snort.

Dirk gets a light whap to the back of the head. 

“Watch your language, Dirk,” Dave reprimands, and Dirk frowns up at him. 

“Fine, assho-- butt… face,” he corrects himself. 

Dave smiles down at him. “Good job,” he says. 

And when he looks back up at you, it’s almost like he’d forgotten you were there. 

The fond smile fades from his face, to be replaced by something much more uncomfortable. 

“We gotta go home, uh,” he mumbles, and Dirk looks between the two of you with growing interest. “You wanna walk with? We can…”

He trails off, looking anywhere but at your face. Even with his shades, you can see that. 

There’s momentary relief when he doesn’t just walk away again, and he _wants_ to talk to you. Leaps and astronomical bounds.

In these past five minutes, you’ve already seen traces of recovery. He’s doing better, here on Earth, with his siblings. His eyes still don’t meet yours easily, but his posture has straightened a little. And his voice is more… his own thing, less needing of approval. And it has more love in it. He’s happier. 

A small hand grips yours, and pulls, and you almost yank it back and claw the offender before realizing that it’s the human child. 

When you turn to frown at him in reprimand for surprising an adult troll, he lets your fingers go, and waves for you to follow him. 

Dave sighs, tilts his head toward you. Makes a face like ‘what are ya gonna do.’ 

“Might as well follow, yeah?”

And you nod.

Dave begins to walk, and you fall into stride alongside him. 

It’s a slightly older, sand-worn neighborhood, alight with people on their way home and the kind of extraplanetary trees they imported from a desert planet a few decades ago to help with the terraforming. It’s been nearly a year since the terminal, so the sun is falling early. It’s cool enough for a jacket, but not too cool for short sleeves to be unheard of. There’s a newspaper whipping back and forth in someone’s mail slot when you pass. Enough sand on the ground to assume that they have street cleaners, but they must get at least light storms at times. The neighborhood starts illuminating with colored lights and decorations. It must be 12th Perigee’s Eve soon.

You observe the brutal mundanity for about five fucking boring minutes of the walk before you force yourself to look over at Dave. 

He walks with the same practiced straightforwardness you do, but with his hands in his pockets instead of wedged behind his back. The behind-the-back thing is very academy, but you never dropped it. Terezi claims that with your forward slouch and semi-permanent scowl, it makes you look half like a drill sergeant and half like a hipster at a beatnik club. Whatever that means. 

Dave’s shades reflect the sun ahead, and his brow is furrowed behind the brim. But his mouth is relaxed, and his profile is as attractive as it always was. Which is to say, a seven out of ten. Good, solid seven. Strong nose, soft lips. God. Waxing poetic like some kind of amateur human male writer talking about ‘exotic’ females from his own species like a complete neanderthal. His curls are still catching the light, with his chin canted up as it is. 

And those lips start moving. 

“So,” he begins, daring to be the first one to talk. 

You nod, before realizing he’s still staring ahead. But he’s talking before you can rectify the mistake. 

“Dressed for a funeral?” he asks, and. What. 

You’re gobsmacked for a brief moment before you see his smirk. A joke. Okay. So you wore nice clothes to see him, or search for him, at least, and he’s making light. Typical of him. You’d forgotten that part. It hurts for a second.

But you don’t have the heart to correct him. 

Funeral? Maybe you’re being melodramatic, but it sure seems like one. A funeral for this fucking reunion. 

“I actually, uh,” you reply, and find yourself starkly incapable of continuing. 

The real story is that it took you a month of feeling an incredibly empty space inside you to realize that maybe you wanted something more than casual out of all that. Something in you knew it from the goddamn beginning, and didn’t see fit to tell the rest of your brain. 

A month, and then you moped for a long time, because you would never find him again, and he probably wouldn’t even want to see you. And then you tried to find him. With Sollux’s help, of course. 

Already you can feel your face boiling just under the carapace, a show of embarrassment. You searched for him for so long, but he doesn’t seem to have searched for you. Something in your thorax rattles gently with unease. 

“I actually--” you try again. And fail again. 

Your hand lifts in some kind of aborted motion, and Dave just stays quiet as you put it back down again. 

You’re here, and Dave is… disappointed? Angry? Happy? You can’t tell. 

So you try to fill the silence again, to actually answer. “I was coming to, uh,” you try, stammering. God. Trying to salvage, like a fucking pirate on the outer rings of the garbage nebulas.

The speaker on your wristwatch communicator buzzes to life.

“He wants to take you on a date,” Sollux cackles into the line, in perfectly accented English, and it takes you a second before you let out an agonized shout and try to forcibly shut off the audio. 

Dave’s eyes are wide where his shades are falling on his nose. 

“My buddy here is visiting, and even thinking of taking a vacation, just to find your sorry ass,” he continues, happily.

You scramble around, trying to find the setting. 

“Sollux, you royal fucking--” 

He keeps going! 

“And--” You manage to muffle a split second of it, “--tunately the only thing he could fucking think about…”

“Sollux I swear to all that is holy, where is the button on this new piece of shit--”

Dave has stopped walking, and Dirk, ahead, has as well. They’re staring at you with mixed amusement and perplexity.

“...is seeing your sorry ass again, something ridiculous and sappy and he told me all about it, I don’t know why you particularly are the one he thought was the One, with a capital--”

The feed cuts off, finally, as you manage to flail enough to hit the right thing. Dave stands, agape. 

A bird chirps from a nearby tree. 

Dirk begins to applaud, shortly. Very, very sarcastically.

You find your head in your hands, breathing hard, and hotter in the face than you’ve ever been before. And that includes your brief stint at water regulation in the Mars Boonies, where the heat is near unbearable from the crater magnification. People are only allowed to work there for a couple years in their life. You lasted maybe a quarter of a sweep. 

“You okay?” Dave asks. 

It’s hesitant, unfamiliar and sweet on his voice, sliding from his tongue. 

You peek between fingers, askance for a split second before you make sure to very deliberately exhale and let yourself relax. 

“Sure,” you sigh, and give up all pretense at looking put together. 

But Dave… is smiling. 

You made him smile, again. 

He looks like a man who’s seeing the ocean after years in the desert. Like he’s so relieved to finally have you.

You say nothing else, and it’s a few long moments before he opens his mouth. 

“How long’re you planetside?” he asks. 

“Ten days,” is your immediate response. “Ten more days.”

You feel defeated. Utterly and purely. You don’t even know if Dave is single to go out with you. To try to do this right. It’s been so long, so long. What if he found someone? 

Dave nods, a gesture to follow, and you start after him as he makes his way once more down the path. Dirk is smirking and typing something furiously into his handheld. You can see a lot of dark green text with a lot of capital letters. It switches, and there’s a lot of light blue text instead.

“Is that guy the friend with the bees?” Dave asks you, and you’re briefly surprised by his putting those facts together. “I know a lot of trolls like organic mainframes. Troll I figured ‘cause of the Alternian accent.” 

And right, duh. Dave is very smart, you forget that a lot. 

But he would have barely seen Sollux. Has he been thinking about this as much as you? The thought gives you a flicker of hope. 

“Yeah. That’s him. You saw him in the terminal?” you ask, and he nods before going very quiet again.

Dave’s face twists, and he looks like he’s warring impulses. Thrashing at the handcuffs of his own self-imposed exile. 

“I’m free tonight,” he says, out of the blue. Hesitant, a little unsure of himself.

You do a double take, almost rearing back. 

“Excuse me?” you ask, needing to know if you heard correctly. 

“I said, I’m free tonight. For that date you dressed up for.” 

Dave is looking at you, and Dirk has stopped typing. Dirk turns abruptly and runs into this little two-story house with a recently new water purifier on the side, and a few illuminated reindeer in the lawn. Dave pauses at the front walk, and shoves his hands even further into his pockets. There’s that slouch again. 

Your thorax starts to rattle again, this time something needy and pitying rushing up to warm your chest. 

Dave’s face is so dark, silhouetted against the sun, and his hair, and. You want to feel it against yours again. 

You want to know if that feeling was as real as it felt to you a year ago. So badly. So desperately.

So, you make a bad decision.

You take pity. 

“Okay,” you confirm, and let him have a piece of one of your smiles. 

“Yeah?” he asks, looking at you over his shades, chin still dipped.

“Yeah,” you confirm.

Your eyes are hot, and you can’t believe he’s saying yes. 

“I know a good place, but I wanna change first. You wanna come in and wait?” he asks, kicking some sand with his toe. 

The relief that courses through you is a wave of cool to spite the fire of anxiety. 

“I would love to,” you tell him, softly. And Dave smiles at you. Actually smiles at you. This warm and tender little toothy grin.

Just a second, just a brief second, before waving you past the picket fence and into the yard. 

He enters the house, and while he hangs up his coat you look around. 

“Hey Dirk! I’m going to a grownup dinner tonight, so no video games until tomorrow, okay?” he calls, and Dirk sticks his head around a corner. Shades and all, hanging off the metallic jamb of what you assume is a bedroom door. 

“Like Rosie and Kanaya and the candles?” he asks, and you snort as you thumb the edge of a coat lapel. 

“Yeah,” Dave says, and you can almost feel the blush on his face. 

“Okay, but bring me cake back,” Dirk replies, and disappears. 

“Okay buddy,” Dave calls, finally, and then--

There’s another troll towering above you. 

“Hey-o, Kanaya,” Dave says absently. “Dirk text you?”

You had just been wondering why the doors of this house were so massive. 

She’s at least a foot taller than you, and looking down her nose. Chin cocked a little aggressively, arms clenched, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth in a curt growl, and she makes a motion with her mouth. Territorial.

The four sections of her mandibles open and close in a fluttering pattern, and you repeat it in the opposite direction. 

Dave is silent through the exchange, barely breathing. 

It’s belatedly, after Kanaya realizes that you’re not a threat to her family and comes forward with arm outstretched and a pleasant smile, that you realize the both of you were making deep vocalizations. 

“Christ, shake the windows much?” Dave jokes, and you roll your eyes before returning the troll’s handshake. 

“So, Dave, who is your friend?” Kanaya asks, and clasps your hand in two warm sets of fingers. Her claws are carefully manicured short for some reason, her lipstick impeccable. But her kitschy blood-bag earrings are a little on the ridiculous side. It endears her to you immediately. 

“Karkat Vantas, pilot and navigator,” you reply reflexively.

When another human, one you recognize from the video message so long ago, comes from behind a corner, you start. She’s wiping ink from her fingertips, and when she meets your eyes, she balks. 

“You’re…” she starts, frowning. 

Dave jumps in. “My copilot from the last mission, yes, Rose,” he says.

And Rose turns on him.

After checking the hallway for Dirk, probably, you watch in mild shock as she gets right up in Dave’s face. 

“You brought one of them back here?!” she hisses. There’s a note of hysteria and a few drops of worry and betrayal lining the anger in her eyes. 

You stand stock still, frozen in place. 

There’s an explosion waiting to happen here.

With Dave’s attitude before, you’re not shocked he’s been with quite a few people, and apparently quite a few copilots. It doesn’t really matter to you, right now, but it’s worth noting. 

“He wants to go on a date,” Dave informs her, with a grin. 

And the whole thing defuses. 

Rose’s eyes go wider before narrowing in suspicion. 

“A… date,” she parrots. 

“Yeah, a date,” Dave repeats, tiredly. But he’s shrugging and loosening and it’s clear there’s some kind of interaction happening here that you’re not privy to. A look to Kanaya gets you an amicable shrug. 

“He was looking for me,” Dave continues, “Found me at the park, I’m going to change and then we’re going to dinner.” Rose looks shocked, still, but it’s warming as she stares at Dave’s growing smile. He glances at you, and then back to Rose. 

“Right? Dinner, Karkat?” He asks. And hearing his voice say your name is so sweet that you almost melt. 

“Yes,” you nearly sigh, before catching yourself and covering it with a cough. 

Rose looks at you with appreciation, next. 

“Dave wants to go… on a _date_.”

And before you know it, you’re getting something like approval in her nod, and she’s slipping her feet into what is obviously very comfortable smugness. 

“Then by all means, Dave. Go have your date.” 

Dave smiles hugely, then, and it takes over his entire face. 

You get the feeling that this approval was shaky, tense, and a long time coming, at least for this particular subject. 

As Dave flees the scene to go and grab a nicer jacket, most likely, he pats Rose on the shoulder. 

“It’s different,” he assures her. Whatever that means. 

By the time he gets back out of his room, you’re trapped with a tiny teacup in your hand and a verbal headlock around your neck. The couple is relentless with their questioning, and their inquiries about whether or not you like their decorations. Dave waves to you, and you run without even bothering to be polite, as they chitter behind you.

_

* * *

Dave takes you to a nice pizzeria, insisting on the one that still has the cheesy checkered tablecloth and a worn candle in the center. You pull out his chair for him, open the door for him, and he makes some kind of variation on a confused face. Like he doesn’t know how to feel about it. 

You flip your plates and cups over from their upturned position. Dave says it’s habit of shop owners. 

It’s so comfortable having him back in your space. And it’s so comfortable to be treating someone special, and to be with him.

Even if the conversation is fucking abysmal at best. In the beginning, at least. 

The conversation is okay in the restaurant, mostly checking up on what the other has been doing. You’ve been running transport, and taking short vacations in between when you can manage. Taking on more inconvenient or high-dollar jobs, to help pay off the medical bills faster and to save some for yourself. 

“I got my expenses all taken care of in a couple months,” you say, around a mouthful of pepperoni. 

“Did you get your cat yet?” Dave asks, and it hits something warm in you that he remembered something you mentioned one time. 

“Yes. Her name is Peregrine. She’s staying with Sollux right now, since I couldn’t get Earth papers for her fast enough,” you tell him, and he grins into his food. It’s not a wicked grin at the expense of Sollux. It’s more… admiration?

“I’m happy for you. It must be nice having a companion,” he says. Genuine.

Wow, he’s gotten far. 

But maybe that’s just with you? 

"You should meet her sometime," you say, around a sip of water.

After you shattered his shields before? 

Dave says something about how he can’t describe his job right now, it being classified. But he does like it, and Dirk is definitely on board. And then he glances around at the half-full restaurant, shrugs, and leans forward to whisper to you that he’s the new driver for Dirk’s new best friend, the heiress of Crockercorp. Little Jane Crocker. 

A few blinks, and you’re suddenly in complete understanding of the secrecy surrounding his recent stint into hiding. After a moment of careful inspection, you see him holding a button on his communicator watch. New, slick, small, but surely full of incredible technology even Sollux would be jealous of. A communication scrambler, you’re guessing, is what he’s currently holding down on his wrist. 

The irritated noise from a nearby woman who was on a video call confirms your suspicions. 

For the rest of the meal, you talk about everything and nothing at the same time. 

He orders a tiramisu to share. 

You order the cake for Dirk.

You split the check right in half.

_

* * *

You walk home, hands linked nervously in the middle. 

Not sure what to do with your thumbs.

And you talk. 

You have one question in mind, one in particular you’ve been thinking about since pretty much the moment you left him there in that terminal. 

There’s no point in dallying around the question, at this point. You both have seen how compatible you are, how well you work together, at least for some things. And it wouldn’t be that dire, wouldn’t be need-or-die. It’s a dumb idea, frankly. But you want it. 

People have started wars for less. 

Looking down at your linked hands, you pull him to a stop under a streetlight. Dave keeps his fingers twined needily into yours, like a puzzle. He glances up at you, a little anticipatory. Like he knows what you’re going to say. 

“You’re probably wondering what my end goal of coming to find you was,” you say, taking your free hand out of your pocket, and using it to shield the top of his one. 

Dave’s fingers clench on your palm. Curious. 

“I have a few ideas. Some more realistic than the other ones,” he tells you. 

And he’s telling the truth. He’s not sure, but he’s got a hunch. 

“Would you want to… be with me?” you ask him. 

He snorts. 

The wording was kind of trite; that fault was yours. 

The little amusement fades almost as soon as it had arrived, however. 

And Dave tilts his head, frowning. Thinking. 

“It can wait, but… we can do long distance easily. It would be nice to have someone to have a home with. Someone to be waiting on me to come back,” you whisper. The most tragic, crooked part of what you want out of this. 

Dave…

“I don’t… know,” he says. 

And your heart nearly breaks all over again. 

“Maybe I spent too long thinking about this, when you just wanted to come here and have your own thing, and leave me in the past--” you begin, and he holds up a hand. Talks over you. 

“You’re the only person I’ll say this to, but. I kept hoping you would come and get me. Now please, shut your airhole,” he tells you. And the roles are totally reversed in that moment, and he’s calling you out on your bullshit as well. 

Maybe you could work out even better than you thought. 

“I just don’t… relationships have never been my thing. I’ve never done them before,” Dave admits. And his voice chips again on the edge, nervous. He squeezes your hand, and draws himself a little closer with the leverage. 

“Like I said, it can… wait,” you tell him. 

It’s even harder to say the second time. 

It’s quiet for a long five minutes.

It’s cold out here, in the night. Your breath makes a cloud.

“Are we ever gonna talk about the shit that happened?” he asks next, soft.

You find yourself chuckling. 

“Well, I think it’s pretty cut and dry, don’t you?” you reply. 

Dave makes a face, and then chuckles as well. You both know it’s anything but cut and dry. “Pilots on an interspace transport mission, one of them a jackass and the other one an impeccably handsome blonde human with rad sunglasses,” he says.

“Hey,” you warn him, with a laugh.

“They don’t get along at all and then the glorified starlet keeps exposing himself in vulnerability and somehow magically makes his copilot want to bone his brains out after almost killing himself by being lost to outer space," Dave waves his free hand in a circle. "Which I still have nightmares about, by the way.”

The last bit makes your heart throb with pity. Just like that day on the ship. Your attraction to him, and nurturing instinct, had combined to make a volatile cocktail that _somehow_ formed into the ideal outcome.

“It wasn’t magic, Dave. Sometimes these things just… happen. You’re very human, for lack of a better comparison or movie cliche,” you tell him. 

Dave snorts. Again. 

“You’re attractive, hence the initial feelings,” you continue. Pushing. And you inch closer to him. 

Dave looks at some point on your chin, eyes shifting. 

“And once I got past the… need to crack open your shell, i-it changed. You felt real to me. Fragile.” Dave’s eyes go wide as you speak. “Something I wanted to protect, something I wanted to cherish. Almost inexplicably.”

Dave opens his mouth, like he’s about to talk. Like he’s about to point out the obvious imbalance, how he doesn’t feel the same way for you. But that’s not the way it works. Not always. It’s okay to be a nurturer, so long as he does his part and keeps you in check as well. 

“I let you go,” you add.

He doesn’t speak. 

What he does do is scuff his boot on the ground, just to make some noise in the silence of the night. 

“You didn’t make me go, though,” he whispers, once he stills. 

And you soften from your nervous tension. You want to let him melt into you.

Dave is working the feelings around in his mouth. Tossing them, chewing his cud, letting it slosh around. 

“People have started wars for less,” he repeats your earlier thought. “I mean, if being attracted to each other, in the very least, isn’t enough to take the dive into this, half the world needs a…” he hesitates. 

“A reality check?” you fill in, and he finally looks up at you, smiles. 

“I swear you’re wrong about me being good, but I’ll, uh,” he pauses, and you squeeze his hand gently. 

You remember the ship. 

How comfortable he was. 

How you want to fit back into his arms like you belong.

How he showed a genuine, real person in that last day, how he was open and true. How all of that self-loathing made way for a human that just wanted to do right by others. 

How warm he made you feel again. 

You think of video calls, separated, so far away, crackling screens and loneliness and tears, and. 

You think of having him here, having his arms around you, having his hand in yours. 

The two things tear at you, yanking in different directions, ripping your heart along the middle seam.

“It would hurt sometimes, wouldn’t it,” he echoes your thoughts. 

“I think it would be worth it,” you say, honestly. 

He thinks about it some more. 

And then he opens his mouth. A deep breath. 

“Imagine something for me. Imagine some great guy comes into your life. He wants someone to come home to, someone to call his own like this, someone to be with, and he wants you for it. He wants you, the biggest fixer-upper possible. After you broke ties and separated. After he saved your life, and your mind. And he wants to fix you and stay with you and stay unreasonably faithful as he travels the galaxy.”

You nod, tracing the contours of his knuckles with your eyes. He seems almost offended that you follow his train of thought. 

“Sounds great, right?” he asks. Obviously he doesn’t want you to say yes. So you do just that.

“When you put it like that, yes.” 

Dave looks fit to rip out hair. “So why am I still apprehensive and scared?” he asks, then. 

Dave’s voice is shaking, and when you finally look back up from your clasped hands, Dave is looking at you almost with pity, with how disbelieving he wants to be. 

“Because it’s still scary. To even think about giving yourself up,” you tell him. 

And you speak like this, you let your personal experience that carries the weight of your world influence your tone. It’s the weight of everything he could possibly need to know about you. About how you'll love him. 

Dave makes a relieved noise, a pained grimace, and whimpers before taking the back of your head in his palm. 

There are familiar lips on yours, pressing chaste and soft and pillow-soft against you, before slowly pulling away to hover inches from your face. 

You know how you look against the night. How your skin and hair must be a silhouette, wanting to blend in and only giving trace amounts of the emotion you feel in the light of this streetlamp. For the first time, you curse your nocturnal camouflage.

When you open your eyes, he’s gazing soulfully into your eyes, his sunglasses not even resting on the bridge of his nose, like before. Red irises plunge headfirst into your own. A fog of breath lightens the air around you. The very air glitters.

You can witness the moment he gives up on doubts and pretense, and just lets himself flow into you.

Then, Dave says something you completely didn’t expect. 

“I never got the chance to ask if I could repair your voice box for you,” he says. 

It takes you a moment before you fully understand, so caught up in the moment. 

Yes, your modulator needs repair you never have time for because of all the time you spend overloading it with yelling into bad communicators. But why is he…

He’s making that face.

But it’s more genuine this time. He’s making that face again like he wants you to accept an offer, like he’s propositioning you. And he’s smirking, too, but weakly and with a hint of that vulnerability. Is he saying yes? 

“Are you saying yes?” you ask, to clarify. 

Dave’s human skin fills with a blush. His eyebrow furrows and he smiles wider, lowering his chin. 

“Yeah,” he mutters, at the floor. 

You smile, then. 

He wants you. 

The wave of happiness that courses through your veins at that is nearly intolerable with its strength. It fires your pistons and deepens your well of affection, and makes you want to kiss him again and again until there’s nothing left that you haven’t kissed. 

“I have nine more days until I have to go,” you tell him, leaning forward again. 

Dave perks up notably. 

“Are you staying in a hotel?” he asks. 

Is he going to invite you to stay with him?

“Yes,” you say, wary. 

Dave grins. And does just that. 

“Would you like to stay with me? It’s Christmas, soon.” he asks you, drawing closer. Gentle fingertips find your lapels, and he makes a careful little noise in his throat. Sweet, vulnerable, just for you. Only for you. 

“For repairs, of course,” he adds. 

You smile, give him a kiss that drags across the sensitive skin of his cheekbone, makes him sigh. 

“More than anything,” you say.

_

* * *

The dark of the hallway doesn’t obscure Dave. The moonlight through the upper window casts across his face, and your nocturnal eyes outline him in grey and blue and pale, pale yellow. 

It’s silent in the house, Rose and Kanaya most likely already abed, and Dirk long asleep, according to Dave. The door clicks shut behind you, and Dave immediately draws you into him. It’s a big house, two stories, so no one should hear you just yet. Dirk’s bedroom is on this floor, so you should move. 

There are searching hands in your coat. And there are fingers peeling back the layers of your clothes. 

Dave’s jacket makes it to the coatrack, but yours doesn’t quite. 

Both pairs of shoes sit on the floor just inside the door, and your soles are cold on the hardwood. 

Still there in the foyer, his hands find yours. 

For a moment, you sway in the dimness of the hall. 

Like dancing to unheard music. Dave hums a tune in your ear, gentle and quiet. 

His voice is deep, almost pleasantly toll-like in his throat. 

Your foreheads press together, and you breathe each other’s air for a moment as you stand there, rocking side to side. 

“I’ll be seeing you,”he croons, and you’re abruptly and absurdly reminded of an old earth movie. 

Before he can continue the song, you catch his hand. It takes a simple move to bring it up to your face and hide your lips in his palm. 

Dave’s face heats next to yours as you plant a kiss there. Just in the warm wrinkle of the ball of his thumb. 

“Uh,” he says, intelligently, as you move your lips to the vulnerable and soft pulse point of his wrist. 

And he gasps, as you turn your head to glide to the tender crook of his elbow, and push up the sleeve to press your mouth there, as well. 

“Bedroom?” he asks, when he manages to recover his words. 

You resist the urge to sigh with exasperation, and nod slowly. There’s too much sleeve here to explore further. Or at least to the extent you would like to. 

_

* * *

The next morning, you and Dave are the last ones up. 

The plastic evergreen tree in the corner of the living room is still lit from the night before. Dave tells you it’s Christmas Eve, today. 

You shower and change the sheets before going downstairs, both wearing some of Dave’s sweatpants and a t-shirt each. Yours says “baby mamma” on it, in sparkling pink. Why-ever the fuck he has that shirt is beyond you. 

Rose and Kanaya are both giving you very knowing looks, and Dirk glances up from his pancakes to wonder loudly weather “Karkat is living with us, now.” 

Dave splutters a little at Kanaya’s question of Whether Or Not He Slept Well. And Why Is He Walking Like That? Almost Like He Rode A Bike For Too Long, Isn’t That Right, Dirk? 

Dave hurriedly sits. And winces a little. You sit next to him after stretching out your back.

“Yeah, Kan, that’s totally right, Dave looks sore. Why are you sore?”

Dave’s head is in his hands, and you’ve got a comforting hand on his lower back, and you’re trying not to focus on the line of inquiry. 

Dirk keeps asking questions that Dave doesn’t have an answer for, yet, and Rose’s grin just grows and grows. 

Kanaya pipes in, sliding a plate in front of you at the breakfast table. 

“Dirk, didn’t you have something for Karkat?” she asks, and the kid perks up significantly before racing out of the room. You look curiously at Dave, and he shrugs before digging into his food. 

Once he’s no longer looking at her, Rose’s smile for him becomes something aching with fondness. It’s so cute you could shit a brick. 

Dirk races back in, and firmly sets a small box upon the table. He opens it, and inside are a myriad of tiny spare parts and tools. One of them you recognize as something specific to you. 

“I can fix your faulty modulator,” he deadpans, and you could nearly laugh. “Since I ain’t got a present for you.”

Already they want you to stay. Already you’re being accepted grossly fast into this household. The regard of Dave’s brother is incomparable, here. 

Dirk is staring up at you, a little doubtful and a little shy, gloves on and fully prepared to use the small plastic sensor in his hand to help pull back the flap of artificial skin over your insert. 

So you tilt your neck for him, point out the incision scar, and turn to give him a better angle. 

The kid fixes the minor wiring problem in less than fifteen minutes. 

Dave looks so proud.

His gaze flickers to you, and he smiles that small, toothy grin again. 

But this time it sticks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!!! merry christmas to you all, here's the chapter a little later than i originally intended on posting it! haha. 
> 
> hope everyone is having a good holiday, and i hope you enjoyed the fic! i love you all, and i wish you the very best <3

**Author's Note:**

> I love y'all and hope you have a wonderful day!!
> 
> [Here](http://royalrastafariannaynays.tumblr.com/) is a link to my blog if you want to talk to me about my fics!


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